Chapter Seven
Zack
“I haven’t found shit on Tina Hollis, she’s been off the grid for a few years now. However, I did find this.”
Marty, one of the detectives in our squad, comes up behind me slapping my shoulder and dropping a folder on the desk in front of me.
I flip it open, cringing when I see the woman who deserted us. I remember vividly when she left. Both Clove and I were so damn young. Clove took it the hardest, though. She always blamed herself for everything when it came to my dear ol’ mom. If things didn’t go Tina’s way, Clove was the one who always got the blunt of her abuse. I’ve never hated anyone in my whole life the way I hated her. Still do.
If Dad’s intuition is right and this fucking troll is behind destroying my sister’s life, she won’t have to worry about spending her life in prison; she won’t have any life left. I will kill her with my bare hands.
“She hasn’t worked in years, dude. Nada. The last trace of her was a little over a year ago in Mississippi, of all places.”
Emotion seals my throat shut.
“What the fuck? Where is she now?”
I pull the photos out and toss them back at Marty, who lets them fall to the floor. I don’t want to look at the bitch.
“Don’t know, but take a look at the last page.”
I flip to the end of the file, my brows furrow as I read.
“Dr. Caleb Hollis? Hollis . . . her fucking husband? What in the hell? Have you talked to him?”
“Fuck, no. I thought I’d leave you the honor of talking to him. There’s a whole bunch of other information in there too. Not about your mother, but about him.”
My ass is up out of my chair so fast it nearly falls to the floor, my hand involuntarily moving to check the gun strapped to my waist.
“Zack, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I snatch up the paper with his name and address on it.
“I’m going to find some answers, and something tells me this cocksucker will have them. Martinez! Let’s go!” I shout at my partner. Not even waiting for him to respond, I push open the front door, making quick steps to my Suburban.
My best friend looks just as stressed out as I am as he climbs in the passenger’s seat.
“What the hell?”
I shove my key in the ignition, put the gear into drive, and skid out of the lot like a madman.
“I’ll explain on the way.”
He grabs hold of the side bar as I whip onto the highway at a lightning speed.
“Hey, slow the fuck down or you’re going to get us both killed and we’ll never make it there.”
I never take my eyes off of the road as I weave in and out of traffic.
“Fuck it. My sister’s been gone for a damn year, man. I am not slowing down.”
“Well, fill my ass in before we get there so I know what the hell is going on.”
I toss the paper into his lap.
“Take a look.”
“Who the hell is this?”
“It’s my mother’s husband, or ex-husband. I don’t fucking know. All I know is that this is the first lead we have into finding my sister. I’m not wasting any more time. This son of a bitch knows something, I can feel it.”
I take a deep breath, feeling adrenaline pumping fiercely through my veins. My hands are shaking so goddamn bad, I can hardly think straight. This is the first real piece of evidence we have gotten.
As we continue north toward the hospital, I fill Martinez in on the little information Marty was able to find on my mother.
“You know you should really call him, don’t you?” he asks me when we pull into the hospital’s parking lot.
Shit. No way in hell am I killing anyone until I have certified concrete evidence on Clove’s whereabouts.
“If this dickhead gives us anything to go on I will, after I kill the prick first.”
“Calm down, Zack. Let me do the talking, brother. Shit. You all right?”
Martinez pats my back as I bend over, clutching my knees.
Fuck me, what was I thinking? I need to do this right. I have to calm down before I barge into this hospital and demand to see this doctor. A doctor who doesn’t have to talk to me.
“What if he won’t tell us a damn thing? What if he doesn’t know anything?”
I’m going to lose my mind if this hunch of my dad’s leads me to a dead end. I have slept less in the past week than I have since the day we found out Clove was gone. This is the closet we have come to being able to find out anything. “Pull yourself together. I’m right here with you. I love your sister too, man. This is good. You can do this. If he doesn’t cooperate, we have the right to detain him. You know all this. Just think of Clove, man, and try to stay calm. Now come on.”
Closing my eyes, I straighten myself up and give him a nod to let him know I’m okay before we make our way to the office of Dr. Caleb Hollis.
I flash my badge to the receptionist and find out the good surgeon isn’t out performing any surgeries today. One of the perks of being a cop.
Martinez gives me a sympathetic look before he knocks on the door of Hollis’s office.
“You still good, bud?”
Well, someone might to have to rearrange the good doctor’s fucking face if he doesn’t give us the information we need to find Tina. I’m not about to tell my partner this shit though, so I nod my head yes.
“Door’s open,” a low voice calls from the other side. We both step inside.
“Barb, this better be important. I need to get this paperwork done before I leave for the weekend,” he complains, not looking up from a stack load of papers on his desk.
“We aren’t Barb,” Martinez says smoothly.
The doctor lifts his head in shock as he glances back and forth between the two of us.
“What the hell?” he starts.
Then his gaze locks on mine and I know in that instant he knows who the fuck I am. An expression of surprise shadows his face along with what I know to be fear. He instantly reaches for the phone on his desk, I assume to call security.
“Put the damn phone down,” I bark.
He wavers, placing the receiver back on the cradle. Martinez and I stride forward until we’re planted right in front of his desk.
“I’m going to chance it here, doc, and say by the look on your face you know who I am.”
He nods his head in agreement.
“I know who you are,” he confirms. “What I don’t know is what the hell you’re doing here.”
“Oh, but we think you do, Caleb.”
Martinez leans over the desk.
“No, I really don’t. If this is about your mother, I haven’t seen that bitch in years.”
I scoff. So does Martinez. The asshole is lying.
“Look, Caleb. May I call you Caleb?”
Martinez takes a seat, and I follow. I grasp the sides of the chair before I jump over this damn desk and kill this fucker. He says nothing as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down. The little prick is scared.
“I’m going to get right to it, then. We have reason to believe Tina may be involved in the disappearance of her daughter, Clove. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about such disappearance, would you? For the sake of your career, doc, I advise you not to lie.”
“Fuck.”
He rubs his hands across his chin, staring at the still open door behind us. Finally, he comes from around his desk and shuts it, then turns back to us.
“This shit has been eating away at me for way too long, now,” he sighs, sitting back in his chair.
“Where is she?” I stand, towering over the desk. “You fucker, where is my-”
“Zack! Don’t do anything crazy,” Martinez warns. He turns to Hollis.
“Look, doc. Let’s do this the right way. Call your lawyer and have him meet you here.” Hauling his wallet out, he places his card on the desk. “You’re coming with us.”
We march him downstairs and out of the building, as he tries to avoid eye contact with the hospital staff members who are staring and whispering as we pass.
“Get in the car asshole,” I growl, placing my hand on his head and shoving him in the back seat of the car. I slam the door shut and toss the keys to my truck to Detective Brock, who showed up and was waiting by my truck with a car to escort Caleb to the station.
“You need to calm down, Zack,” Martinez barks when I climb into the passenger’s seat.
“I know. But hell, he has answers. He knows where she is.”
I take a deep breath to try and calm myself. It doesn’t work. Fuck, nothing is going to work! The only thing that will calm me is seeing Clove. Making sure she is all right.
“Do you realize how damn lucky we are that he is giving in so easily? He has guilt and shame written all over his face, man. This is the break we were looking for.”
He grasps my shoulder and I force myself to give him a tight smile. My attention turns back to the road in front of us. My fingers itch to kill the man in the back seat. As a cop, I do know how rare it is for someone to succumb so easily, but as a brother whose sister has been missing for a year, I want my answers now.
************
“What in the hell, Chief? This is my sister we’re talking about. I need to be in on that interrogation, damn it!”
I pace back and forth, caged in with my fucking boss while Martinez and another officer interrogate Caleb Hollis.
“Look, Zack. I know how bad you want in there. Do you realize how easily the two of you got him to cooperate? He’s no fool. He knows his life is fucking over and yet here he is confessing, not giving it a second thought. If I let you in there and you lose it, his lawyer will put a stop to this immediately. Cases like this never come easy.” He stops short. “Aw hell, I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I know this has been anything but easy.”
I know he’s trying to be a friend here and try to get me to calm down. Part of me is relieved, but something is clawing away at my heart and brain just to find out where Clove is so I can see for myself that she’s okay. Where the hell has she been for a year?
Sinking down on the worn leather couch, I rest my elbows on my knees and grab handfuls of my hair with both hands out of frustration, anxiety, and fear.
Tears fall down my face, a whole damn year’s worth of pent up emotions. Missing my carefree sister and not knowing jack shit about how to find her. Watching my father age overnight. Krista never wanting to leave the house in case Clove was to call. Not being there for so much of the first year of my son’s life because I was working day in and day out trying to find her. And all the answers have been just an hour away from me the whole time.
“I cannot believe my mother had a part in this. It blows my fucking mind. I mean, how? Why? How could anyone in their right mind do something as disgustingly hateful and fucked up as this to their own child?”
“I don’t have the answers for that, son.”
The chief sits down next to me, placing his arm around my back. For the next two hours, I sit there with my head in my hands.
“We got her!” Martinez comes into the room with a big smile on his face. “He told us everything, man. Every motherfucking thing.”
I jump to my feet, shaking.
“Where is she? Is she alive, hurt?”
“You’ll want to sit back down for some of this, brother.”
I shake my head profusely.
“Where the hell is she?”
“She’s in upstate Mississippi, in one of Caleb’s houses. And she’s not alone.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? I know she’s not alone. Trent and my fucked up mother have her. This shit is all kinds of messed up.”
Martinez is silent for a moment as the Chief and I look at each other in confusion.
“She had a baby, Zack,” he says finally. “A little girl.”
“What?”
It’s then that I hear the door crash open. Shock freezes me in place as the man I have not seen for too damn long stumbles into the room, a thunderous expression on his face.
“Where the hell is my WIFE?”