Chapter 16
Sunday, Late Afternoon …
Queenie was trying to hold her energy just outside the house. But every time she blinked and tried to focus, the house wavered in front of her. It was two stories tall with a peaked roof and had a veranda on the front of it. There were a million houses like this one all over the world. But this one she kept coming back to.
She turned to look behind her to see if either of the other houses were exceptional in any way. They both had the same dilapidated look to them. But this one, across the street, she swore was the one she’d been in before. Moving as slowly as she could, she drifted closer. She didn’t even know what form she was in. She thought she was in the middle of a vision, yet she was directing this one, and that had never happened before. Normally she was carried by the vision instead. And she also had a sense of not being alone, and that was freaky. She wasn’t sure if it was David, the Watcher guy, who could see into her world, because, if he could see into this, everything she knew was being blown right out of the water.
Was that because Reese was here? She slipped up to the edge of the wall. No house numbers were on the building, and that frustrated her. If she had an address, she could track him down. Knowing her time here was very short, she moved around the house, looking for anything to see if it was her son’s prison.
The door opened suddenly, and a stranger stepped out. Big and blustery, but she’d never seen him before. “Maggie, come on. Let’s go,” he roared.
“I’m coming. I’m coming.” A frumpy middle-aged woman stepped up beside him. “What about the boy?”
“Leave him. It’ll do him some good.”
Maggie chewed on her bottom lip. “He’s been sickly,” she argued. “I don’t think we should leave him that long.”
The big man grabbed her arm and tugged her toward the garage. “We aren’t going to be long. Just a couple hours.”
But the woman protested as he tried to drag her unhappily in the direction he wanted to go. “You said that last time, and we stayed out overnight.”
“So what? The kid should grow up strong.”
“He’s just a baby,” Maggie protested.
But the big man squeezed her arm until she cried out in pain. “I don’t care how old he is,” he growled. “The kid’s a pain in the ass.”
“He is not,” Maggie said quietly.
“Ha. Don’t you start turning all high and mighty on me now. You’re responsible for that kid being as much of a loser as you are.”
Queenie lost the sound of their voices as she stepped through the open door before Maggie had shut it behind her. Once inside, she drifted through the upstairs of the house, searching, and then she headed to the basement. She had to go under the crack in the door and downstairs, and, sure enough, there was the little boy. She had no proof, but she couldn’t stop thinking it was Reese curled up on that bad. But he wasn’t sleeping. She drifted toward him and wrapped her arms around him. Against his ear, she whispered, It’s me, honey. It’s Mommy.
He opened his eyes and looked around, sniffling slightly. Are you here to save me?
I’m here to find out where you are. Do you know your address? Do you know your phone number? Is there anything that will help me find you?
No. He sat up and looked around. I can’t see you.
She squeezed him with all her might.
He smiled and laughed. That tickles. I don’t want to be here no more, he said. Can you take me home?
We’re working on it, she promised. You stay positive and don’t let them know anything about us, okay?
He waved his hand. I won’t.
Do you know what school you go to?
He shook his head unhappily. They said I couldn’t go to school yet.
She looked around, frantic for any sign of where he was. Do you know a doctor you’ve gone to see? Or a store you’ve been in? A mall?
Milestone Mall, he called out happily.
She could feel her energy dissipating, sucking backward in time. She called out, I’ll be back, this time with help.
He cried out, “Mommy.” And then he burst into tears and collapsed back down.
That was the last sight she saw. She slammed back into her body. As soon as she opened her eyes to her living room, she burst into tears herself. She snatched her phone and called Kirk.
“Milestone Mall. He said he’s been to Milestone Mall. I have an image of the house, but there’s no house number, and I couldn’t see a street sign. Somebody named Maggie lives there. Her husband or partner is a big blustery man, and he hurt her when she didn’t want to leave Reese home alone.”
She knew her rambling words were fast and atop themselves, but she couldn’t help herself. As she shook all over, she realized the spiders were wrapping around her tighter and tighter again, holding her close. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm down. The more upset she became, the more agitated the spiders became.
To the empty room around her, she whispered, “I’m all right. Thank you. I’m all right.”
A warm pinkish-lavender breeze wafted around her, bringing a smile to her heart and to her lips.
“Who are you talking to?” Kirk snapped in her ear.
She gave him a soft chuckle. “The spiders. They understood how upset I was. They’ve wrapped around me again like a blanket, but it’s like a metal jacket, and I can hardly move.”
“Jesus,” he breathed out. “I’m doing a search for Milestone Mall. There’s one just out of town.”
She washed the spiders in a loving rain until they relaxed. Moving slowly she got to her feet, the spiders forming and reforming around her. “Where? Where is it?”
“Calm down. I’m figuring out what we’ve got here. We’re also doing a house search for somebody named Maggie.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “Maggie could be Margaret. It could be any number of iterations, and, because of the type of guy he is, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if her name wasn’t even on the deed.”
“Or they could be renting,” he said. “It would take us days to drive up and down all those roads, looking for him. Did you see the car?”
She thought about it. “No. When they went into the garage, I went down to see Reese.”
“Milestone Mall is a small mall within Snohomish County,” he said. “Just a little strip mall on the outskirts.”
“Well, he’s not very far away from that,” she said in excitement. “There’s got to be a way to find him.”
“There will be, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy,” he said.
“I don’t care how easy it is. I’m leaving now, and I’ll drive around the area. If I come across that house, I’m going in after him.”
“Wait! I don’t want you going alone.”
She snorted. “You need to find out what happened to him at the hospital.”
“No, stop. We can’t know it’s our son. We need to find this little boy now—no matter whose son he is. Sorting out what happened to him when he was little can be handled afterward. But we have to save him.”
She took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m not thinking clearly.”
“I’ll pick you up in ten.” And he hung up.
She hugged the phone to her chest. Dear God, Reese was out there. He was actually alive …
Just then the Watcher’s voice, David’s voice, filled her living room. “What are you looking for?” He sounded almost like he was chewing gum and mocking her at the same time.
She stiffened. Since he was talking out loud to her, she would too. “David, how come you keep bothering me?” How could he still communicate with her? She swore she’d put up enough defenses to keep him out.
He chuckled.
She must have let her disgust show.
“Why do you keep blocking me? What are you hiding?”
“It’s my personal life. I don’t really feel comfortable with you coming in unannounced.” She groaned. “And, if I did put up some defenses, it doesn’t look like they worked.”
“Nope, sure didn’t,” he said cheerfully. “But then, I’m way better at this than you are.”
“Lots of practice, huh?”
“Lots and lots of practice. It got boring there for a while, so I had to switch it up. And it took a lot to even do that. But now it’s amazing. I can do anything I want.” His tone turned smug. “Of course that’s not what you wanted to hear.”
“Which is why you came because you know you can tell me anything, and, since I don’t know who you are, I can’t tattle.”
He laughed, big rolling waves of laughter. “Exactly. But then I haven’t even told you much, have I?”
“No. I know you had something to do with the lady in the lake, but I don’t know how or in what way.”
“That’s too bad because honestly I’d hoped for more from you. Although I haven’t killed any of these people, I’ve been responsible for about thirty different deaths.”
Her heart froze. “Thirty of them,” she whispered, trying to make it sound like she was in awe, whereas she was just plain in shock.
“Yep. And none of them died by my own hand. I’ve often wondered if I could kill on my own.” The contemplative tone made her want to throw up.
She tried to sort out what he was saying, but it made no sense. “Anytime you want to tell me the details, I’d be willing to listen,” she said, quietly wanting to vomit at the same time trying to shield her thoughts from David.
He laughed. “But then you might figure out what cases I’m talking about and learn who I am. I can’t have that.”
“I don’t know any of these people, so I highly doubt I could track anything,” she said. “But, if you’re afraid, that’s fine.”
“I’m not afraid,” he snapped, his surly tone giving her an idea about how short-tempered he was.
She’d raced around, going to the bathroom, tying up her hair, grabbing her sweater and purse, and now she was standing at the window, looking outside, waiting for Kirk. “Good. Besides, I don’t have time. I have to leave right now,” she said.
“Why is that?”
Immediately the temper seemed to be gone as if a new topic had changed his interest, almost like he was a child. “My boyfriend is picking me up.”
There was silence on the other end. “Does your boyfriend have abilities?”
“No,” she admitted. “He doesn’t.” Well, not exactly.
“Aren’t you tired of always dealing with people who are less than you?”
She thought about that for a moment and how he obviously felt. “You’ve never found anybody, have you?”
“Not like me, no.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That must be very lonely.”
“Yes, it is.”
“But I know you don’t want anything to do with me,” she said on a laugh. “I’m a mess.”
He chuckled. “Besides, you’re not even close to my skill level,” he said with a jeer. “Go off with your little humanoid pet and have fun. We’ll talk again later.” And just like that, he disappeared.
It was a weird session today with him. As if he could see her and yet couldn’t see her. It didn’t make any sense. But, with those thoughts, she watched as Kirk arrived at her place in his car. She stepped out, locked the door and realized something important had been divulged in that conversation she had just had with the asshole. But being so focused on her son, she hadn’t caught what it was. Yet it was important.
*
They drove into Milestone Mall forty minutes later. He’d used his GPS to get there the fastest route possible, then had pushed the speed limit the whole way. There was a coffee shop, a Laundromat, a little corner store that looked like a five-and-dime. At the one end was a gas station.
Queenie hopped out and walked around the mall.
“What are you doing?”
She shrugged. “I’m trying to feel him. To see what direction to go.”
“Okay. I’ll stand here and make sure we don’t look completely strange,” he said drily.
“I don’t give a shit how I look,” she said. “Don’t you understand this could mean our son is alive?”
He could feel the smile falling off his face. “I don’t know what it means because we don’t know anything. And I don’t have a personality to remember, to hold close and to hope that this is him. Because I never had a chance to meet him, and, as soon as I did hear about him, it was to find out he’d died. You say he’s here, but I don’t have any physical proof of that.”
She gave him a long assessing look and then nodded. “Fair enough.” She walked to the corner by a tree, leaned against the trunk, bowed her head and closed her eyes.
He’d worked on over sixty cases with her, and yet he never found a level of comfort with her process as her methodology always changed. Sometimes she would open her hand. Sometimes she would lean against a tree. Sometimes she would touch something or someone. He never understood. Often he wished he could, but they were so busy all the time, he’d always pushed it off instead of trying to sort it out.
It was almost as if she were making things up as she went. Yet it always worked. Usually.
He watched and waited. It was late in the afternoon, but they still had hours of daylight. He had printed off a map of the area, but they had few details to go on. Finally she straightened and walked back to him. But there was no serene knowing on her face. There was nothing.
She pointed behind her and said, “My best guess would be out there.”
“Why is that?”
She glanced at the pavement and kicked a rock. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t used to be so indecisive.”
“I care too much,” she said softly. Too softly. “Remember what happens when I care too much?”
His gut twisted because, of course, that’s what had happened on their last case. She’d pointed in one direction, and the victim was in another.
“Then I suggest we take a look in that direction. One direction is as good as any other.” He glanced at the stores. “Do you want to ask anyone?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t begin to describe the house any better than a normal, you know, standard house that I’ve seen time and time again.”
“What about the partners?”
She frowned and then nodded. “Maybe I’ll go into the Laundromat and see.” She walked into the Laundromat ahead of him. He frowned and chose the corner store. There he stepped in and talked to the retail clerk, asking if he knew of a couple who lived close by, where the wife was more timid, possibly abused, with a big florid-faced man, who had a little boy, but the clerk might not see the little boy very often.
The clerk just looked at him as if he was nuts.
When Kirk flashed his badge, the kid calmed down and shrugged.
“No, I don’t recognize anyone with that description.”
“Do you know any little boys around here?”
The kid shook his head. “Nah. You could check at the school though.”
Kirk nodded and walked over to the five-and-dime store. It was about ready to close. He stepped inside, pulled out his badge and asked the owner if he knew of any families with a little five-year-old boy and gave a brief description of what he had of the parents.
The older man looked at him and frowned. “I’m not sure. We got a couple like that. It’s not a great area in some ways, at least not if you head to the north.”
“Does that ring a bell at all?”
The man drummed his fingers on the table as if thinking. He nodded. “That almost describes Ben. I can’t remember what his wife’s name is though.” He turned to the back room. “Hey, Flo. What’s Ben’s wife’s name?”
“Maggie,” Flo said, bustling toward him. She wore a huge apron over her dress, a big duster in her hand. She beamed up at Kirk. “Maggie’s a lovely lady.”
“Do they have a young boy?”
Flo nodded. “It’s not theirs though. Maggie’s sister adopted him. I don’t know what happened, but Maggie ended up with custody.”
Kirk wondered about the term custody. It was often used very loosely for people who had children but didn’t have the rights to keep them. “Any idea where I could find her?”
“She lives up on Miles Road, maybe ten, twenty minutes out of town.”
He nodded and smiled. “Thank you very much.” As he turned to leave, so they could lock the door behind him, he said, “Do you know where either of them work?”
“Ben is a trucker, but he’s out of work on account of his bad back,” the man said. “Maggie, I’m not sure what she does.” He turned to look at Flo.
Flo shrugged. “I think she cleans houses. At least she used to when she lived in the city, but now that she’s here, I don’t know that there’s much call for it.”
Kirk smiled, thanked them again and left.
Outside he watched as Queenie walked through a flower bed at the north end of the mall. A line of spiders headed out in front and behind her and turned toward the corner of the street.
He strode with purpose to her side. “It’s okay. I know they live on Miles Road. About fifteen minutes up the way.”
She turned to look at him and said, “Did somebody recognize the couple?”
He nodded with a smile and told her what the store clerks had said. Back in the car, he pulled out, taking the road the spiders had pointed out. “Are you talking to spiders now?”
“Not really. But it’s like they seem to know Reese is out there.”
He took the turn onto Miles Road and gave the car as much gas as he dared. The road was full of potholes and definitely not the liveliest of areas. They drove for a good five minutes, but they’d yet to pass any houses.
She frowned, but he kept going until they saw a couple houses up ahead. He pointed and said, “Do those look familiar?”
She shook her head.
They drove a little slower until he came to a few more houses.
“Wait! That one!” she cried out in excitement.
He was hard-pressed to bring the vehicle to a stop before she was already out the door. “Stop!” he said in a harsh whisper.
She did and turned to look at him.
“You can’t just barrel into somebody else’s house looking for a child you don’t know.”
Her frown was instant.
He shook his head. “Hell no. We do this properly.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What the hell is proper in this instance?” Her words were bitter. “Nobody was there to help me when I was in the hospital, when somebody stole my child.”
He didn’t dare answer that. Instead he tucked her hand into his and said, “I’m the cop. You let me talk to them.”
She stared the house. “They’re not here.”
He frowned at her. “We’ll check.”
They walked up to the front door and knocked. Sure enough, nobody answered. He walked to the garage to find the big door open and no vehicle inside. It was as she had said; they had left in the car. Possibly only gone for a few hours, which meant they could get back at any time. Or they could have come home and left again. Or they wouldn’t be back for a while.
He turned and walked to the back of the house. He left Queenie on the front step to keep watch, but he couldn’t count on her not bolting into the house, even though he’d warned her. He knocked on the rear kitchen door, and the door opened under his fingers. He stepped forward and called out, “Hello, anyone home?”
He thought he heard a faint voice. He walked through to the front door, still calling out. He opened it and let Queenie in. “We have no right to be here,” he said.
“Sure we do,” she said, heading for the stairs to the basement. “I heard a child screaming.” She raced downstairs. He followed behind into a room. She stopped and cried out. He stepped in front of her, and there was the room she had described and the bed. But nobody was on it.
“The little boy is not here.”
She shook her head in dismay.
He reached out and pulled her close. “That doesn’t mean he’s gone.”
She continued to shake her head, but she seemed unable to speak.
He did a quick search of the rest of the house and then moved her back outside and seated her in the car with the door open while he thought about what their options were.
“You might not have seen them come back and pick up the little boy and leave again.”
She nodded.
But he could see she wasn’t convinced. “Any chance that vision happened a long time ago?”
She raised huge eyes to him. “Don’t tell me that he’s dead,” she said. “I won’t believe you.”
“I know that, but are you sure the vision you saw today when you followed the spiders was current?”
She frowned. “I can’t say anything for sure. But I wasn’t alone. I know that.”
“What do you mean, you weren’t alone? Are you saying this asshole who looks into your world was there?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not sure what I’m saying. All I can say is, I felt someone else was there.”
“Who else would have the skill to keep track of what you were doing?”
“Stefan,” she said. Mentally she called out to him but found only an emptiness.
“What do you want to do now?” Kirk asked.
“Wait here,” she said.
“We can’t just sit here all night.”
“We hardly have a choice. I know he lives here.”
“If we can be sure they live here, we can backtrack to see how they ended up with this little boy. I want you to stay here and keep watch. I’ll look for something with their last name. Like a utility bill or something. Okay?”
She nodded.
He strode back inside, checked the kitchen table and in the junk drawers. Off to one side of the counters was a stack of papers. He pulled them toward him. Ben and Maggie Freeman.
So the little boy could have belonged to Maggie Freeman’s sister. He used his phone and took a picture of both documents. Then, as he stepped out the door, a vehicle drove slowly toward them. He stepped back, away from view again, but it was too late. The car gunned past and ripped up the road.
Swearing softly, he raced to his car and said, “I didn’t consider that.” He jumped inside the vehicle and started it up.
Queenie buckled her seat belt as she said, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
He hit the gas. “It never occurred to me Ben might have a good reason for not wanting to see a cop here. I was standing on the front porch when he pulled up. He took off as soon as he saw me.”
“How many were in the vehicle?”
He shook his head. “I only saw two.”
She gave a small cry and clasped her hand over her mouth.
He drove hard and fast for a good ten minutes as they looked for the car, checking each side road for it. But there was nothing. A half hour later, he was still swearing. “I don’t know where they could have gone.” He did a quick U-turn and drove the car back outside the house again. “I’m not sure what to do now,” he admitted.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said. “It’s the only connection I have to our son.”
“I’ll talk to the neighbors.” He parked in front of a neighbor’s house. “Again I want you to stay here.”
She nodded. “There’s nothing good about those people. That little boy has a terrible life.”
He walked up to the first house but got no answer. At the second house, a little old lady answered. She smiled up at him, and he asked her about the neighbors across the street.
She shook her head. “We don’t talk,” she said. “That’s the way I like it. He’s trouble. Sometimes the shrieks from the house give me the chills.”
“Did you ever call the cops?”
The old lady shook her head again. “No, not with a guy like that. Only a couple of us who would’ve heard. He would have known it was me.”
Realizing how isolated they were, he could see her point. “If I give you my card, will you please call me when they get back?”
She looked at the card and frowned.
“It’s the little boy we’re trying to save,” he pressed.
She nodded. “In that case, I will. But chances are, by the time you get here, they’d be gone again.”
“I hope not,” he said. “We’ve been tracking this little boy for a long time now.”
She smiled and nodded. “He is the cutest thing.”