Night Sins (7 page)

“Did you notice if Josh came back in the building after the other boys had gone?”

“No.”

“You didn't happen to go outside, see any strange cars?”

“No.”

Mitch pressed his lips together and sighed through his nose.

“Sorry,” Olie said softly. “Wish I could help. Nice kid. Don't think something happened to him, do you?”

“Like what?” Megan's gaze didn't waver from Olie's mismatched eyes.

He shrugged again. “World's a rotten place.”

“He probably went home with a buddy,” Mitch said. The words sounded threadbare, he'd said them so often in the past two hours. His pager hung like a lead weight on his belt, silent. In the back of his mind he kept thinking it would beep any minute and he'd call in to hear the news that Josh had been found eating pizza and watching the Timberwolves game in a family room across town. The waiting was eating at his nerve endings like termites.

Megan, on the other hand, appeared to be enjoying this, he thought. The idea irritated him.

“Mr. Swain, have you been here all evening?” she asked.

“That's my job.”

“Can anyone verify that for you?”

A bead of sweat rolled down Olie's forehead into his good eye. He blinked like a deer caught in a hunter's crosshairs. “Why? I haven't done anything.”

She offered him a smile. He didn't buy it, but it didn't matter. “It's just routine, Mr. Swain. Have you—”

Mitch caught hold of a belt loop on the back of her parka and gave it a discreet tug. She snapped her head around and glared at him.

“Thanks, Olie,” he said, ignoring her. “If you think of anything at all that might help, would you please call?”

“Sure. Hope it works out,” Olie said.

The feeling of claustrophobia lifted from his chest as Holt and the woman backed away from the door. As their footsteps faded away, Olie's sense of solitude began to return. He moved around the room, running his fingertips over the block walls, marking his territory, erasing the intrusion of strangers. He slid into the chair and ran his hands over his books, stroking them as if they were beloved pets.

He didn't like cops. He didn't like questions. He wanted only to be left alone.
Mind your own business, Leslie.
Olie wished other people would take that advice.

I
didn't appreciate the little gaff hook gag,” Megan snapped. Walking beside Mitch, she nearly broke into a jog to keep up with him. Their footfalls against the concrete floor echoed through the cavernous building. Lights shined down on the sheet of smooth white ice. The bleachers that climbed the walls were cloaked in heavy, silent shadows, a cold, empty theater.

“Pardon me,” Mitch said sardonically, gladly picking up the hostilities where they had left off. “I'm used to working alone. My manners may need a little polish.”

“This doesn't have anything to do with manners. It has to do with professional courtesy.”

“Professional courtesy?” He arched a brow. “Seems a foreign concept to you, Agent O'Malley. I don't think you'd recognize it if it bit your tight little behind.”

“You cut me off—”

“Cut you off? I should have thrown you out.”

“You undermined my authority—”

Something hot and red burst behind Mitch's eyes. The flames burned through his control for the first time in a very long time. He wheeled on Megan without warning, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pinned her up against the Plexiglas that rose above the hockey boards.

“This is
my
town,
Agent
O'Malley,” he snarled, his face an inch from hers. “You don't have any authority. You are here to
assist upon request
. You may have degrees out the wazoo, but apparently you were in the ladies' room when they gave that particular lecture at the bureau.”

She stared up at him, her eyes impossibly huge, her mouth a soft, round O. He had meant to frighten her, shock her. Mission accomplished. Her heavy coat hung open, and Mitch could almost see her heart racing beneath her evergreen turtleneck.

Fascinated, he let his gaze slide downward. With her shoulders pinned back, her chest was thrust forward and her breasts commanded his attention. They were small round globes, and even as he stared at them, the nipples budded faintly beneath the fabric of the sweater. The heat within him altered states, from flames of indignation to something less civilized, something primal. His intent had been to establish professional dominance, but in the heat the motivation melted and shifted, sliding down from the logical corners of his mind to a part of him that had no use for logic.

Slowly he dragged his gaze up to the small chin that jutted out defiantly. Up to the mouth that quivered slightly, betraying her show of bravado. Up to the eyes as deep and rich a green as velvet, with lashes short and thick, as black as night.

“I never had this kind of trouble with Leo,” he muttered. “But then, I never wanted to kiss Leo.”

Megan knew better than to let him. She knew every argument against it by heart—had repeated them over and over in her mind tonight like chants to ward off evil spirits.
It's stupid. It's dangerous. It's bad business. . . .
Even as they trailed across her brain she was lifting her chin, snatching a breath. . . .

She flattened her hands and shoved at him, succeeding only in breaking Mitch's concentration. He pulled his head back an inch and blinked, his head clearing slowly. He had lost control. The thought was like a bell ringing between his ears. He didn't lose control.
Contain the rage. Control the mind. Control the needs.
Those dictates had gotten him through two long years, and in the time it took to draw a breath Megan O'Malley had driven him to the verge of breaking them.

They stared at each other, wary, waiting, breath held in the cool of the dark arena.

“I'm going to pretend that didn't happen,” Megan announced without any of the authority or righteous indignation she had intended. The announcement came out sounding like a promise she knew she couldn't keep.

Mitch said nothing. The heat abruptly died to a glow. He lifted his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. She wanted to usurp his authority, then rob him of his sanity, then pretend it hadn't happened. A part of him bridled at the thought. But that wasn't an intelligent part of him.

It wasn't smart to want Megan O'Malley. Therefore, he would not want Megan O'Malley. Simple. She wasn't even his type. Pint-size and abrasive had never done anything for him. He liked his women tall and elegant, warm and sweet. Like Allison had been. Not at all like this little package of Irish temper and feminist outrage.

“Yeah,” he muttered, digging deep for sarcasm. “Good move, O'Malley. Forget about it. Wouldn't want to get caught with your femininity showing.”

The words stung, as he had intended them to, but the hit brought no satisfaction. All that stirred within him was guilt and a hint of regret that he had no desire to examine more closely.

An entrance door banged open, the sound bounced around the quiet like a rubber ball.

“Chief!” Noga bellowed. “Chief!”

Mitch bolted, that knot in his stomach doubling, tripling, as he ran along the back side of the boards.
Please, God, let him say they found Josh. And let him be alive.
But even as he made the wish, cold dread pebbled his skin and closed bony fingers around his throat.

“What is it?” he demanded, rushing up to his officer.

The look Noga gave him was pale and bleak, the face of fear. “You'd better come see.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mitch whispered desperately. “Is it Josh?”

“No. Just come.”

Megan brought up the rear as they ran from the building. The cold hit her with physical force. She zipped her jacket, dug her gloves out of her pockets, and pulled them on. Her scarf trailed off one shoulder, fluttering like a banner behind her and finally falling off as she dashed across the parking lot.

Mitch sprinted ahead, running across the rutted ice in dress shoes, as surefooted as a track star. Midway down the lot, along the far edge, three more uniformed officers stood huddled together by a row of overgrown leafless hedges.

“What?” he barked. “What'd you find?”

None of them spoke. Each looked to another, mute and stunned.

“Well, fuck!” he yelled. “Somebody fucking say something!”

Lonnie Dietz took a step to the side, and a ray of artificial light fell on a nylon duffel bag. Someone had written across the side of it in big block letters:
JOSH KIRKWOOD
.

Mitch dropped to his knees in the snow, the duffel sitting before him with all the potential of a live bomb. It was partially unzipped and a slip of paper stuck up through the opening, fluttering in the breeze. He took hold of the very edge of the paper and eased it slowly from the bag.

“What is it?” Megan asked breathlessly, dropping down beside him. “Ransom note?”

Mitch unfolded the paper and read it—quickly first, then again, slowly, his blood growing colder with each typed word.

a child has vanished
ignorance is not innocence but SIN

CHAPTER 6

D
AY
1
9:22
P.M.
         19°

K
ids do the damnedest things,” Natalie said. She worked at the kitchen counter, building turkey sandwiches while the coffeemaker hissed and spit. “I remember Troy pulling a stunt like this once. He was ten or eleven. Decided he was going to go door to door, selling newspaper subscriptions so he could win himself a remote-control race car. He was so caught up in winning that prize, he couldn't think of anything so minor as calling from school to tell
us
what he was doing.
Call my mother? Why should I call her when I see her every day?
”

She shook her head in disgust and bisected a sandwich corner to corner with a bread knife the size of a cross-cut saw. “This was when we lived in the Cities and there was starting to be a lot of gang activity going on in Minneapolis. You can't imagine the things that went through my head when Troy hadn't come home yet at five-thirty.”

Yes, I can.
The same thoughts were trailing through Hannah's mind in an endless loop, a litany of horrors. She paced back and forth on the other side of the breakfast bar, too wired to sit. She hadn't been able to bring herself to change out of the clothes she'd worn to work. The bulky sweater held the faint tang of sweat from the exertion and stress of working on Ida Bergen. Her black hose bit into her waist, and her long wool skirt was limp and creased. She had taken her boots off at the door only out of habit.

She walked back and forth along the length of the counter, her arms crossed in a symbolic attempt to keep herself together, her eyes never straying from the phone that sat silent beneath a wall chart of phone numbers.
Mom at the hospital. Dad at his office. 911 for emergency.
All printed by Josh with colorful markers. A home project for safety week.

The panic rushed up inside her again.

“I tell you, I was a wild woman,” Natalie went on, pouring the coffee. She added a drop of skim milk to each and set them on the bar next to the plate of sandwiches. “We called the police. James and I went out looking for him. Then we damn near ran over him. That's how we found him. He was riding around in the dark on his bike, so obsessed with winning that damned toy, he couldn't be bothered to look out for traffic.”

Hannah glanced at her friend as the silence stretched and she realized this was where she was expected to interject. “What did you do?”

“I went tearing out that car before James could put it in park, screaming at the top of my lungs. We were right outside a synagogue. I screamed so loud, the rabbi came running outside, and what does he see? He sees some crazy black woman screaming and shaking this poor child like a rag doll. So he goes back inside and calls the cops. They came flying with the lights and sirens and the whole nine yards. 'Course by then I had my arms around that boy and I was crying and carrying on—
My baby! My baby boy!
” She shrieked at the ceiling in a hoarse falsetto, waving her arms.

Rolling her eyes, she pursed her lips and shook her head. “Looking back on it, we probably didn't have to punish Troy. The embarrassment was probably enough.”

Hannah had zoned out again. She stared at the phone as if she were willing it to ring. Natalie sighed, knowing there was really nothing she could do that she wasn't already doing. She made coffee and sandwiches, not because anyone was hungry but because it was a sane, normal thing to do. She talked incessantly in an attempt to distract Hannah and to fill the ominous silence.

She went around the end of the counter, put her hands on Hannah's shoulders, and steered her to a stool at the breakfast bar. “Sit down and eat something, girl. Your blood sugar has to be in the negative digits by now. It's a wonder you can even stand up.”

Hannah perched a hip on one corner of the stool and stared at the plate of sandwiches. Even though she hadn't had a bite since lunch, she couldn't work up any desire to eat. She knew she should try—for her own sake and because Natalie had gone to all the trouble to make them. She didn't want to hurt Natalie's feelings. She didn't want to let anyone down.

You've already managed to do that today.

She'd lost a patient. She'd lost Josh.

The phone sat silent.

In the family room, where the television mumbled to itself, Lily woke up and climbed down off the couch. She toddled toward the kitchen, rubbing one eye with a fist, the other arm clutching a stuffed dalmatian in a headlock. A fist squeezed Hannah's heart as she watched her daughter. At eighteen months Lily was still her baby, the embodiment of sweetness and innocence. She had her mother's blond curls and blue eyes. She didn't resemble Paul in any way, a fact Paul did not care to have pointed out to him. After all the indignities he'd had to suffer in the long effort to conceive Lily, he seemed to think he deserved to have his daughter look like him.

Thoughts of Paul only made Hannah more aware of the mute telephone. He hadn't called, even though she had left several frantic messages on his machine.

“Mama?” Lily said, reaching up with her free hand in a silent command to be picked up.

Hannah complied readily, hugging her daughter tight, burying her nose against the little body that smelled of powder and sleep. She wanted Lily as close as possible, hadn't let her out of her sight since bringing her home from the sitter's.

“Hi, sweetie pie,” she whispered, rocking back and forth, taking comfort in the feel of the warm, squirming body clad in a purple fleece sleeper. “You're supposed to be sleeping.”

Lily deflected the remark with a beguiling, dimpled smile. “Where Josh?”

Hannah's smile froze. Her arms tightened unconsciously. “Josh isn't here, sweetheart.”

The panic hit her like a battering ram, smashing the last of her resistance. She was tired and terrified. She wanted someone to hold her, to tell her everything would be all right—and mean it. She wanted her son back and the fear gone. She clutched Lily to her and shut her eyes tight against the onslaught of tears. As scalding as acid, they squeezed out and ran down her cheeks. A low, tortured moan tore free of her aching throat. Lily, frightened and unhappy at being held so tightly, began to cry, too.

“Hannah, honey, please sit down,” Natalie said softly, leading her to the camelback love seat. “Sit. I'll bring you something to drink.”

Outside the house, the dog barked and a car came up the driveway. Hannah swallowed back the rest of the tears, though Lily made no similar attempt. The suspense was as thick as smoke in the air. Would Josh come bursting in the kitchen door? Would it be Mitch Holt with news she couldn't bear to think about?

“Why isn't Gizmo in the backyard, where he belongs?”

Paul stepped into the kitchen, a petulant frown turning his mouth. He didn't look across the room to Hannah, but went about his nightly ritual as if nothing were wrong. He went into his small office off the kitchen to put his briefcase on the desk and hang up his coat. Hannah watched him disappear into the room that was his sanctuary of perfect order. Fury boiled up inside her. He cared more about hanging his coat perfectly in line with his other coats—arranged left to right from lightest weight to heaviest, casual to dress—than he cared about his son.

“Where's Josh?” Paul snapped, striding back into the kitchen, tugging loose the knot in his striped tie. “That dog is his responsibility. He can damn well go out and put him away.”

“Josh isn't here,” Hannah answered sharply. “If you would bother to return my phone calls, you would have known that hours ago.”

At the tone of her voice, he glanced up, his hazel eyes wary beneath the heavy line of his brow. “What—?”

“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded, unconsciously squeezing Lily harder. The baby made a fist and hit her shoulder, wailing. “I've been frantic trying to get you!”

“Jesus, I've been at work!” he shot back, trying to take in the scene and make some sense of it. “I had a hell of a lot more important things to do than answer the damn phone.”

“Really? Your son is missing. Do you have a client more important than Josh?”

“What do you mean, he's missing?”

Natalie stepped between them and reached up to rescue Lily. The baby went gratefully into her arms. “Let me put her to bed while you and Paul sit down and discuss this
calmly
and
rationally,
” she said firmly, her eyes hard on Hannah's.

“Missing?” Paul repeated, hands jammed at the waist of his fashionable brown trousers. “What the hell is going on here?”

Natalie wheeled on him. “Sit, Paul,” she ordered, swinging an arm in the direction of the kitchen table. His eyes widened, his frown deepened, but he obeyed. She turned back to Hannah, her fierce expression softening. “You sit, too. Start at the beginning. I'll be right back.”

Cooing to Lily, she headed across the plush carpet of the family room for the short flight of steps that led up to the bedrooms. Hannah watched her go, guilt rising at the way Lily laid her head on Natalie's shoulder and blubbered a watery, “No, no, Mama,” her big eyes full of accusation as she stared at Hannah.

God, what kind of mother am I?
Goose bumps turned her skin the texture of sandpaper, and she pressed a hand over her mouth, afraid an answer might come out that she didn't want to hear.

“Hannah, what's going on? You look like hell.”

She turned back toward her husband, wondering bitterly why the effects of stress seemed to lend character to a man's appearance. Paul had just put in better than twelve hours at the accounting firm he was partners in with his old college friend Steve Christianson. He looked tired, the lines that fanned out from the corners of his eyes and bracketed his mouth were a little deeper than usual, but none of that detracted from his attractiveness. Just an inch taller than she, Paul was trim and athletic, with a lean face and a strong chin. His pinstripe shirt had lost its starch, but with the tie hanging loose at his throat, he looked sexy instead of rumpled. She glanced down at herself as she sank onto a chair and felt like something that had crawled out of the depths of the clothes hamper.

“We had an emergency at the hospital,” she said softly, her eyes on her husband's. “I was late picking up Josh. I had Carol call the rink to leave word, but when I got there he was gone. I looked everywhere but I couldn't find him. The police are out looking now.”

Paul's face hardened. He sat up, shoulders squared. “You
forgot
our son?” he said, his voice as sharp as a blade.

“No—”

“Christ,” he swore, pushing to his feet. “That damn job is more important to you—”

“I'm a doctor! A woman was dying!”

“And now some lunatic has made off with our son!”

“You don't know that!” Hannah cried, hating him for voicing her fears.

“Then where is he?” Paul shouted, bracing his hands on the tabletop and leaning across into her face.

“I don't know!”

“Stop it!” Natalie barked, storming into the kitchen. “Stop it, both of you!” She gave them both the ferocious glower that had cowed more than one cop on the Deer Lake force. “You have a little girl upstairs crying herself to sleep because her parents are fighting. This is no time for the two of you to be sniping at each other.”

Paul glared at her but said nothing. Hannah started to speak, then turned her back on them both when the front doorbell rang. She ran across the family room, stumbled into the hall, and flung herself at the door, her heart hammering wildly in her chest.

Mitch Holt stood on the front step, his face grave, his eyes deep wells of pain.

“No,” she whispered. “No!”

Mitch stepped inside and took her arm. “Honey, we'll do everything we can to find him.”

“No,” she whispered again, shaking her head, unable to stop even as dizziness swirled through her brain. “No. Don't tell me. Please don't tell me.”

No amount of training could prepare a cop for this, Mitch thought. There was no protocol for shattering a parent's life. There were no platitudes adequate, no apology that could suffice. Nothing could stem the pain. Nothing. He couldn't be a cop for this, couldn't detach himself even if it would have lessened his own pain. He was a father first, a friend second, and memories and guilt assaulted whatever professional reserve he might have had left. Behind Hannah, he could see Paul and Natalie standing in the hall, waiting, their faces bleak, stricken.

“No,” Hannah whispered, her lips barely moving, her tear-filled eyes brimming with desperation. “Please, Mitch.”

“Josh has been abducted,” he said, the words tearing his voice into a low, hoarse rumble.

Hannah crumpled like a broken doll. Mitch wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. “I'm sorry, honey,” he murmured. “I'm so sorry.”

“Dear God,” Natalie murmured. She stepped past them and shut the front door against the bitter chill of the night, but the cold that had come into the house had little to do with the weather. It cut to the bone and could not be shaken off.

Paul stepped forward and pried loose one of Mitch's hands from around Hannah's shoulders. “She's
my
wife,” he said. The bitterness in his tone caused Mitch to lift his head.

Paul pulled Hannah away as Mitch dropped his arms. But he made no real effort to offer her the same kind of comfort or support. Or perhaps it was just that Hannah drifted away from him when he would have tried. Either way, it seemed odd, but then, what about this night hadn't been surreal? Children weren't abducted in Deer Lake. The BCA didn't have any female field agents. Mitch Holt never lost control.

Christ, what a lie.

The anger flared inside him, saved him, as ironic as that seemed. It gave him something to focus on, something familiar to hold on to. He pulled in a deep breath, pulled himself together. He rubbed a hand across the stubble on his jaw and looked to his assistant. Behind the big lenses of her glasses Natalie's eyes were swimming with tears. She looked nearly as lost as Hannah, who stood hugging the archway into the living room, her face pressed hard against the wall.