Ultimate Fear (Book 2 Ultimate CORE) (CORE Series) (18 page)

“I know that’s a long drive you two just made,” Phil continued, as he led them through the living room, then up a flight of stairs. “Can I get you anything to drink? If you haven’t eaten lunch, I’m sure my wife would be happy to whip you up a couple of sandwiches.”

Dante looked to Jessica, who shook her head. “We’re good, thank you,” he replied.

“If you change your mind, just let me know.” When they reached the second floor landing, Phil took them down the hall. “We use the bonus room for all of Maddy’s toys. What’s sad is that we
need
a room for all of her toys,” he said with a chuckle, then stepped into the playroom. “Carrie, they’re here.”

A pretty young woman with straight brown hair pulled back in a sagging bun sent Phil a nervous smile. An equally pretty little girl, who looked just like the woman, looked up from the blocks she’d been playing with and eyed him and Jessica.

“Who here, Mama?”

The blond headed boy sitting next to her stopped building his tower and looked at them, his big blue eyes round with curiosity. Dante held the boy’s gaze for a moment, before looking away. He didn’t want the sudden anger swelling inside him to show. He’d been disgusted and disturbed by the kidnappings when he and Jessica were discussing them and trying to piece together evidence and patterns. Standing in the same room with the boy changed everything. He was so young—a baby, really. How could anyone have discarded him like yesterday’s trash? Was that what had happened to Sophia? Had someone thrown her away as if her life hadn’t mattered? To him, to Jessica, to every person who had been blessed with the opportunity to hold Sophia, receive one of her infectious smiles, she had mattered. And so did this boy.

Yesterday, he’d looked at Jessica as a crusader for the missing children and their families. He’d also considered what she’d been doing a healthy way for her to ease her obsession with finding their daughter. Now he understood. This was a fight for the innocent, for the children too young to fight for themselves. This was about justice.

“Daddy’s friends.” The woman gave her daughter a reassuring smile and approached them. “I’m Carrie. Thanks so much for coming.” She looked to the boy. “He’s such a sweet little thing,” she said, her tone hushed. “This whole situation breaks my heart.”

Phil smiled at his wife, then crouched in front of his daughter. “Wanna go downstairs with Mommy?”

The boy dropped his blocks. “I go, too?”

Phil tossed the boy’s blond hair with the palm of his hand. “Nope. You get to keep playing. Maddy’s going to help her mommy make you a surprise. How’s that sound?”

“S’prises?” the boy gasped and scrambled to his feet. “I go make s’prises, too.”

“Then it wouldn’t be a surprise.” Jessica knelt next to the boy and rested a hand on his shoulder. “And while they’re making your surprise, we’ll help you build a tower and
you
can surprise Maddy.”

The boy’s face lit with a grin and he clapped his hands together. “You have dis one.” He sat back down and handed Jessica a blue block. “You have dis one,” he repeated, and offered Dante a green block.

As he joined Jessica and the boy on the floor, Carrie scooped up her daughter and left the room. Phil moved to the back of the playroom and sat in a rocking chair in the corner. “Elton, tell Miss Jessica and Mr. Dante about the fort you and Maddy made this morning.”

The boy looked up, confusion clear in his eyes.

“I’m Miss Jessica.” Jessica pointed to herself. “And this is Mr. Dante. What’s your name?”

“Two.”

She chuckled and Dante smiled, as well. “How old are you?”

“Two,” the boy answered, and handed her a red block.

“What do your mommy and daddy call you?”

“Elton.” He let out a little sigh and hung his head. “I miss Mommy and Daddy. I go home?”

“Soon,” she said, sadness in her tone. “Hey, do you want to color?”

The boy immediately abandoned the blocks and stood. “I color picture wich you?”

“Yes. Let’s make a surprise for Maddy and her mommy, then we can make your mommy and daddy one, too. Come over to the table.”

She took his little hand and led him to the kids’ table that already had paper and crayons on it. Dante stood and followed them, opting to sit back on the floor rather than attempting the small chair. Jessica did the same and pushed a piece of blank paper in front of the boy.

With a red crayon in his hand, Elton scribbled on the paper. “I draw s’prise for Maddy. Look. See?”

“I do see,” Jessica said. “Now I’m going to help you draw a surprise for your mommy and daddy.

“I help?”

“Sure.” She made an oval on another blank piece of paper. “Here’s your mommy’s head. What else does she need?” Jessica asked, and pointed to her eyes.

The boy gave her a comical, exaggerated blink. “Eyes.”

“Very good. You’re so smart. But what color should I make your mommy’s eyes?” She pulled out a purple crayon. “Purple?”

The boy giggled. “No. Blue.”

“Blue? Are you sure her eyes aren’t purple?”

He giggled some more. “Blue,” he repeated, and handed her a blue crayon.

“Okay, if you say so,” she said, giving the oval shape blue eyes. “Now what about her hair? Is
that
purple?”

Laughing, the boy dug in the crayon box and handed her a yellow crayon. “Yewow.”

“Oh, but I really love purple. But if your mommy’s hair is yellow, we’ll make it yellow. Is her hair like this?” she asked, making straight lines along the outside of the oval.

He shook his head. “Like Mr. Phil,” he said, make loops with his finger.

Dante noted Phil’s short, curly hair, then looked to Jessica, who gave him a smug smile. During their drive to Lamoni, she’d told him she’d try this method to gain a crude description of the kidnappers. With little experience dealing with toddlers, he’d expressed his doubts, thinking the boy too young to notice such things as hair and eye color. Either Elton was the exception to the case, or he’d misjudged the intelligence of kids.

“Not like that,” the boy said, frowning at the way Jessica drew in the hair.

“Is it longer?” She tugged her ponytail free and let her long hair brush past her shoulders. “Like Miss Jessica’s”

“Uh-huh, like Miss Jessica’s. Where her mouth?”

“Oh, we do need to make her mouth. Without a mouth, your mommy can’t give you smiles and kisses. I bet your mommy gives you all kinds of smiles and kisses.”

“Yes. Daddy, too.”

“Your daddy, too? Aren’t you lucky? Well, let’s give your mommy a nose and then we’ll draw a picture of your daddy.” She finished the rough portrait, then set another blank piece of paper in front of her. After she made an oval, she asked, “Are your daddy’s eyes purple?”

Elton shook his head and looked at Dante. “That color,” he said, pointing to Dante’s eyes.

“So your daddy has brown eyes. What about his hair? Is that brown, too?”

“Mmm-hmm. Daddy needs hat.”

“A cowboy hat?”

Elton giggled and scooted off his chair. He went to the corner of the room, shifted through what looked like a box of dress-up clothes, then pulled out a ball cap and placed it on his head. “Ta-da,” he shouted.

Despite the anger and sadness churning in his gut, Dante grinned. The boy was smart and adorable, and had an awesome personality. How could anyone have given him up? How could these people have given him smiles and kisses, then tossed him aside? The evidence was clear. They’d treated the child as if he was their own, ensured that he was healthy, had taken the time to teach him his colors, numbers and ABCs… Had they also loved him? If so, why not keep him or the others? Why spend the time raising these boys for a couple of years only to replace them with another?

“Here. You try,” Elton said, taking the hat from his head and handing it to Dante.

The hat was meant for a little kid, and when Dante did as Elton ordered, it sat on his head like a beanie. Elton laughed. “You look silly.”

“That’s because he is silly,” Jessica said, and added, “He’s stinky, too.”

The boy held his nose. “Pee-eww.”

Dante pretended to sniff. “I don’t know, you’re kind of stinky, too. Or is that Miss Jessica I smell.”

The boy laughed and sat back next to Jessica. “We draw more?”

“Sure.” While Elton did more scribbling, Jessica continued to ask questions the boy could relate to. Ten minutes later, and the boy’s attention span depleted, they’d learned that Elton’s
dad
drove a pickup truck—based on the different styles Jessica had drawn—and that he had tools and built houses. While he didn’t want to discount the boy’s description of his so-called father, Dante couldn’t put much credit into everything Elton had said. Maybe the man in question had tools, but had used them on the house they’d live in, or he’d used them to build a shed or play house. Still, this was more than they had when they’d first arrived. As for the woman who’d acted as Elton’s mother, from the way the boy had described her, it sounded as if she didn’t work. Except for making his favorite cookies or ‘pasgetti’, Elton hadn’t had much to say about her other than he missed his mommy. They’d also learned the couple didn’t have any animals.

When Jessica had broached the subject of pets, the boy’s eyes had brightened. Although he was adamant that they didn’t have a dog, he’d gone on and on about the black puppy from the park, and how he saw pictures of it on the ‘c’pooter’ at the library. Again, nothing concrete and nothing helpful.

“Thank you for playing with me,” Jessica said to Elton. “Are you ready to go see the surprise Maddy and her mommy made for you, and give Maddy the picture you made for her?”

Elton picked up the paper he’d scribbled on and stood. “I have snack?”

“How about some lunch first,” Phil said, pushing out of the rocking chair.

“I have sandrich? Samami and cheese?”

“Sure, buddy. Miss Carrie can make you a salami and cheese sandwich.”

How Phil deciphered samami to mean salami, Dante didn’t know. Although the boy talked well, there had been a few times during their conversation with him that he could have used a translator.

“I show Miss Carrie mommy and daddy picture, too?” he asked, staring at Jessica’s drawings. “Wait.”

“What is it, buddy?” Phil asked.

“Imples.”

“Imples?” Phil frowned and looked between him and Jessica. “Don’t know what you mean.”

Elton pressed his index fingers on cheeks and gave them all a big, fake smile. “Imples.”

Jessica grinned. “I think he means dimples. Is that what you’re saying, Elton?”

Fingers still pressed on his cheeks, he bobbed his head.

“Who has dimples? Your mommy or daddy?”

“Mommy.”

“Well, I’ll just put them in like this,” she said, making marks on the picture of the blond, curly haired woman. “How’s that?”

He answered her by taking the picture and hugging it to his chest. Then he grabbed the picture of his dad and raced out of the room.

“That was really great,” Phil said. “We know they were living with him in St. Joseph and—”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Dante said. “We only know that the stroller was bought there.”

Phil shrugged. “I suppose you’re right, but it does make sense though. Unless they bought the stroller as they were passing through. Anyway we can get a time stamp on the date the stroller was purchased?”

“We’re working on it.” During the drive to Lamoni, he’d called Rachel and asked her to contact Walmart. Hopefully they’d offer up assistance and wouldn’t force them to obtain a warrant.

“The stuff about the kidnappers…Elton was able to give us quite a bit,” Phil said, and looked to Jessica’s different drawings of trucks. “The boy knows his trucks.”

“And trains,” Jessica added. “He’s obviously obsessed with Thomas. I wish I’d known that. I would have brought him a train.” She cocked her head, the expression on her face thoughtful. “What do you make of the dad building houses?”

“That could mean anything,” Dante responded as he worked the kinks out of his back. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to check with builders in the St. Joseph area.”

“I can do that,” Phil volunteered. “Knowing the man we’re looking for drives a dark grey or silver pickup truck might lead to something.”

“If Elton was right on the color.”

“Oh, come on, Dante. That boy knows his colors. I think it’s a great lead.” She looked to Phil. “I also think you should look into any company that offers a handyman service or does home renovations. A kid Elton’s age wouldn’t understand the difference.”

Phil nodded and walked toward the door. “I can do that, too,” he said, as they followed him down the hall. When they reached the bottom of the steps, which opened near the kitchen, he stopped and rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s just me, but don’t you find it bothersome that these people—from the sound of it—loved Elton?” He looked to Jessica. “When you were talking about smiles and kisses, I saw Elton’s face light up. That boy genuinely loved being around his mom and dad. You could see it in his eyes.”

“I know where you’re going,” she said with a shake of her head. “How could these people have showed Elton love and yet get rid of him?”