The announcement didn"t surprise J.D. He"d halfway expected it. What he hadn"t expected was to be called to the chief"s office for a meeting with the mayor and the DA. And what was Bonner doing there?
"You"ll be working with Sergeant Hudson and Officer Lovelady," the chief told him, then glanced at Bonner. "They"ll be brought up to speed later today when you and I meet with them. We"re going to have to handle everything from here on out very carefully. If our suspicions are correct, then things could quickly turn into a media nightmare."
J.D. glanced around the room, inspecting all the somber faces. An odd, off-center twitch in his gut warned him that there was more to this bigwig powwow than met the eye.
"It"s complicated." Chief Mullins glanced from J.D. to George Bonner. "There is a possibility that our Rocking Chair Murder cases are connected in some freakish way to a series of kidnappings that occurred in and around the Chattanooga area over a five-year period that began twenty-eight years ago."
That information piqued J.D."s interest and aroused his curiosity.
"I was the FBI agent in charge of the task force that investigated the Baby Blue toddler abductions," Bonner said. "I"ll give you the basic info now and you can go over all the files later and bring yourself up to speed on the old cases."
J.D. nodded.
"Over a five-year period, six toddler boys, all fitting the same general description, were abducted, and the first five have never been found, dead or alive."
Bonner"s facial expression didn"t alter, but J.D. noted the flicker of pain in the former federal agent"s eyes.
"Until now," Bonner said. "Maybe."
"We won"t know for sure until we get the results of the DNA tests on both toddler skeletons found with our murder victims." Chief Mullins cast a sympathetic glance toward Mayor Hardy, whose wife"s cousin had been the second victim.
"If the skeletons turn out to be two of the Baby Blue abductees, then there will be no doubt that there"s a connection between the two cases despite a quarter of a century separating them," Bonner said.
J.D. took a couple of minutes to a.s.similate the info. Years ago, someone had kidnapped six toddler boys. Their bodies were never found. Now someone had killed two young women and placed the skeletal remains of the toddlers in the murder victims" arms.
Whoa, wait a minute. Did Bonner say five of the toddlers had never been found?
"You said five of the bodies had never been found. What about the sixth toddler?"
"Jeremy Arden," Bonner said. "We rescued him and arrested the woman who kidnapped him. He"s alive and well. I checked, and he"s living here in Chattanooga now."
"The woman who kidnapped him-did she abduct the other five boys, too?"
"We weren"t sure then and we"re not sure now. Regina Bennett was declared legally insane and spent the rest of her life in a mental inst.i.tution. The psychiatrists who examined her at the time explained the death of her own toddler had sent her already unbalanced mind over the edge. She admitted to killing her terminally ill two-year-old, and from her rambling confessions, we gathered that she kept putting the child out of his misery over and over again. The only thing was, we believe that she was actually killing perfectly healthy little boys after she kidnapped them."
A tight knot formed in J.D."s belly. "She never told you what she did with the bodies?"
Bonner shook his head. "From what we could gather and what her doctors explained, Regina Bennett believed that she mercifully ended her son"s suffering. In her mind, there had been only one child."
"Her own son," J.D. said.
"And before you ask, yes, we tried to find out where Cody Bennett was buried, and we found something mighty peculiar. There was no record of Cody"s birth or his death."
"Are you sure the child existed?"
"We"re sure. There are hospital records. The boy existed and he was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia. Thirty years ago, the survival rate for children with the disease was much lower than it is today. For many children it was a death sentence."
"Ever figure out why there was no record of Cody Bennett"s birth or death?" J.D. asked.
"The best we could ascertain, Regina Bennett was raped, hid her pregnancy, and then gave birth to the child at home on her aunt and uncle"s farm." Bonner held up a restraining hand. "Again, before you ask, yes, we covered every inch of that farm-all eighty-nine acres-with a fine-tooth comb. We didn"t find any human remains."
"If the skeletal remains found with Jill Scott and Debra Gregory are two of the missing toddlers, someone knew where Regina Bennett buried those little boys," Chief Mullins said. "And that somebody is, more than likely, our killer."
Chapter 10
After her uncle"s phone call that morning, Audrey had asked Donna to reschedule her eleven o"clock appointment for one this afternoon. That gave her exactly two hours to drive from her office downtown on McCallie Avenue to Parkridge Valley, a twenty-minute drive if she took Interstate 75, have lunch with Hart, and get back on time. When she had last seen Garth at police headquarters late yesterday, she had thought she"d convinced him to wait before he told Hart about the toddler skeletons. He had argued that Hart had as much right to know as Wayne did.
"Dad isn"t emotionally unstable," Audrey had said. "Hart is. We have no idea how the news will affect him or what he might do. He hasn"t been out of the rehab program at Parkridge for very long, and although he"s been clean and sober for weeks now, it wouldn"t take much to send him off the deep end again."
Garth had agreed with her, but apparently sometime between late yesterday and this morning, he had changed his mind. He had called her at the office shortly before her first patient arrived.
"I told Hart" was the first thing Garth had said when she took his call.
Groaning silently, she had replied, "How is he?"
"Not good," Garth had admitted.
"Where is he or do you know?"
"Don"t worry. He"s still here at my place," Garth had told her. "I"ve talked him into letting me take him over to Parkridge for a meeting this morning and I thought maybe you could go over and pick him up afterward."
It wouldn"t be the first time that she and Garth had worked as a tag team to take care of Hart. "What time?" she had asked.
"Eleven-thirty."
"Okay. I"ll have to get Donna to rearrange appointments, but I"ll pick him up at eleven-thirty and see if I can talk him into going to lunch with me."
"Don"t try to psychoa.n.a.lyze him during lunch. Don"t be a counselor. Just be his sister, okay? You can do that, can"t you?"
Just be his sister.
Dear Lord, if only things were that simple. Hadn"t she always been his sister first and foremost in the years after Blake"s disappearance? A loving, caring, supportive sister who had made excuses for him, forgiven him time and again, and seen him through crisis after crisis. How many times had he sworn that if she would give him just one more chance, he would, in his own words, straighten up and fly right?
She had made far too many excuses for Hart. She had told herself repeatedly that maybe he simply couldn"t help it, that he"d always been emotionally fragile, that Blake"s disappearance and his mother"s suicide had sent him on a collision course with alcohol and drugs.
So, here she was at Parkridge, waiting for Hart to emerge from the outpatient meeting. She had uttered more than one "Please, G.o.d, please" prayer on the drive there. Even though Garth had been Hart"s primary caretaker over the years, she was Garth"s backup. Not once in all these years had Garth let Hart down; and not once had she turned her back on her stepbrother. Not even when he got her best friend pregnant.
Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, Audrey stood back and away from the exit door as the support-group session ended. She saw Hart before he saw her and she noticed he was talking to another man, a guy who looked a little younger than Hart, possibly in his late twenties. When Hart spotted her, he visibly tensed, as if he knew that Garth had sent her to baby-sit. Their gazes connected for just a second. She kept her expression neutral, uncertain how he would react if she smiled or frowned.
When Hart walked over to her, the younger man came with him. He was of medium height and build, his dark blond hair curled over his ears and down the back of his neck past his collar. His blue eyes were bloodshot. And he sported several days of light brown beard stubble. His jeans were faded and worn, and his long-sleeved cotton shirt was wrinkled.
"Hi, sis." Hart kissed her cheek, then turned to the other man. "See, I told you she"d be here. I can always count on Audrey and Uncle Garth, no matter how bad I screw up."
Ignoring Hart"s comment, she held out her hand. "h.e.l.lo, I"m Hart"s sister, Audrey."
The young man hesitantly accepted her hand. His grip was soft and weak, as if he were unsure of himself. Audrey had found that quite often when she shook hands with another woman, the woman"s grip would be unnaturally limp, which reflected a lack of confidence. She had a firm grip that often surprised men who were not accustomed to what they considered a bold att.i.tude.
"Nice to meet you, Audrey." He kept his gaze averted, seeming unable to make direct eye contact with her. "I"m Jeremy."
"Have you two known each other for very long?" Audrey asked, a.s.suming that they had gone through rehab together.
"A few weeks," Jeremy said.
"We met at one of these support meetings," Hart told her. "And the really crazy thing is that, as it turns out, we"ve got a lot in common. Not only are we both recovering addicts, but we"ve both been f.u.c.ked up since we were kids."
Not knowing what Hart expected her to say, Audrey didn"t respond at first. Instead she glanced from Hart to Jeremy and said, "I"ve come to invite you to lunch, Hart. Maybe Jeremy would like to go with us."
"I...uh...thank you, but I"ve got to get to work." When Hart patted him on the back in a we"re-buddies fashion, Jeremy said, "See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah, see you tomorrow." As soon as Jeremy walked away, Hart faced Audrey. "You don"t know who he is, do you?"
"Should I know him?"
"Probably not. I didn"t recognize him either. All I"d ever seen were photos of him when he was a little kid."
Puzzled by Hart"s comment, Audrey stared at him with a wrinkled brow and narrowed gaze.
"Maybe you"ll recognize his name-Jeremy Arden."
Audrey"s mouth flew open on a silent gasp. My G.o.d! My G.o.d! "Jeremy Arden? The little boy the FBI rescued from Regina Bennett?" "Jeremy Arden? The little boy the FBI rescued from Regina Bennett?"
"One and the same."
"Does he know who you are? Who we are?"
"Yeah, I told him. He knows our little brother was abducted, that the authorities believe he was one of Regina Bennett"s victims."
"I had no idea he still lived in the Chattanooga area."
"He just moved back here last year. He"s lived pretty much all over the country, b.u.mming around, trying to figure out how to live with what happened to him." Hart fixed his gaze on Audrey"s face. "Jeremy doesn"t have a big sister who"s never given up on him. The poor guy doesn"t really have anybody. His dad"s dead and his mother remarried years ago and pretty much disowned him."
"I can"t imagine a mother disowning her child."
"Not everybody"s as caring and forgiving as you are. He really doesn"t blame his mom. Believe it or not, sis, Jeremy is a lot more screwed up than I am. He actually remembers being with Regina Bennett. Not all of it, but bits and pieces."
"But he was so young. It"s more likely that he thinks he remembers because of what he"s been told."
"Maybe. Maybe not. But he was older than Blake. Jeremy was small for his age and looked younger than he was. He was nearly three years old when he was abducted."
"I don"t know that I ever knew how old he was," Audrey admitted.
"Neither did I. He told me."
"Has he talked to you about it?"
"Nah, not really. It"s not something he can talk about easily."
"I hope he"s talked about it to the doctors here at Parkridge."
"I guess he has, but sometimes talking doesn"t help."
Hart grabbed Audrey"s arm beneath her elbow. "Come on, sis, take me to lunch. That"s why you"re here, isn"t it?"
Relaxing a little, Audrey allowed herself to smile. "You know me too well."
It was time for her to come home. Cody missed her. He missed her. She had to know how much they needed her. And she needed them. They belonged together, the three of them.
Using the binoculars, he watched her through the window of her apartment, the open curtains revealing her arguing with a man. Why was she living with someone else, with a man he didn"t know? And why did she keep using different names? This time, she was calling herself Whitney Poole.
Why did she keep going away? Why wasn"t she helping him keep his promise?
He laid the binoculars on the car seat and rubbed his temples, trying to relieve the pounding in his head. The headaches were getting worse. He wasn"t sleeping well at night. It was happening again. He couldn"t rest without the sound of her voice lulling him to sleep.
Hush, little baby, don"t say a word.
He had to bring her home soon. If he didn"t, he would lose his mind. Even knowing that she wouldn"t stay-couldn"t stay-for very long, it didn"t matter. A few days, a few weeks, that was all he needed.
She would leave him, of course, as she always did. But eventually, he"d find her again and bring her home.
He had sent Cody with her twice now.
He was keeping his promise.
He picked up the binoculars, and when he saw the man slap her, he wanted to kill the son of a b.i.t.c.h.
It"s all right. I"ll take you away soon, back home, where you belong. You"ll be safe. You"ll be loved and cherished.
When he saw the guy slap her again, he balled his hands into tight fists and pressed his head against the steering wheel. As he pounded the seat on either side of his legs, he beat his head repeatedly against the steering wheel.
Soon, very soon, I"ll come for you. I"ll take you away from that horrible man. I promise I will. And I always keep my promises.
J.D. had spent most of the day poring over the copies of the old Baby Blue kidnapping files. He hadn"t even taken a lunch break. He"d spoken briefly to Garth Hudson and Tam Lovelady about the Rocking Chair Murders, making sure he had all the information, no matter how insignificant. But for the most part, he had read reports, looked at photos, scanned old newspaper clippings, and familiarized himself with the six abduction cases that the FBI had investigated during a five-year period. Six toddlers. Seven, if you counted Cody Bennett, a child who, except for hospital records of his illness, hadn"t existed. At least not on paper. No birth certificate. No death certificate. And yet, his mother had admitted to "putting him to sleep."