Chapter 10
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Houston
Flint’s alarm buzzed fifteen minutes early. He’d slept fitfully and lain awake for the past hour anyway. Staring at the ceiling and thinking about tactical teams and tactical mistakes had not fully metabolized the adrenaline that flooded his system in Kentucky.
The pre-dawn darkness pressed against his bedroom windows. Occasional headlights swept across from the street below. Houston’s humid air clung to the glass, a hazy barrier between his quiet sanctuary and the awakening city.
He rolled out of bed and headed for the kitchen. Coffee first. Then a shower and the seven-hour drive to Mount Warren.
Flint’s encrypted phone sat on the kitchen counter where he’d left it. Two missed calls from Gaspar in Miami. Both logged at 3 a.m.
Which wasn’t all that unusual.
Gaspar rarely slept, anyway. He’d been shot in the line of duty back when he was still FBI and there had been only so much the doctors could do. He never complained or let the pain interfere with his work. But he popped Tylenol like candy when he thought no one would notice.
Steam rose from the coffee maker. The rich aroma filled the small kitchen. The granite countertops reflected the under-cabinet lighting. Light and shadow created sharp angles across the room’s clean surfaces.
Flint poured coffee and hit the call back button.
“You’re up early,” Gaspar said when he answered on the first ring.
“Couldn’t sleep. You called?”
“Found something. Thought you’d want to know before you left for Mount Warren.”
Flint checked his watch. He needed to be on the road soon to make the meeting with Sheriff Milliken. But Gaspar wouldn’t have called unless it was important.
“What did you find?” Flint asked.
“I ran those database searches you wanted. Missing children, homeless shelters, social services records.”
Flint scratched his befuddled head. “I didn’t ask you to run any searches.”
Gaspar was quiet for a moment. “Drake called me around midnight. Said you wanted systematic searches for displaced children. Three kids and a teenage female.”
Flint smiled despite himself. Drake had anticipated the need.
“Drake give you any parameters?”
“Geographic focus on states near Kentucky. Children aged approximately three years and an infant. Teenage female, sixteen to eighteen,” Gaspar replied. “Emergency housing situations most likely to yield results.”
That sounded like Drake. Thorough. Methodical. He’d probably been thinking about the search criteria during the flight back to Houston.
“What did you find?”
“Illinois homeless shelter in Ravenswood. Late October. A young woman with three children arrived without warning seeking emergency housing.”
Flint grabbed a pen from the drawer. The ballpoint clicked when he pulled it from its holder. “Names?”
“Lisa Peterson. Children listed as Melvin, Dennis, and Carolyn Peterson.”
“Ages?”
“Melvin and Dennis were reportedly four years old. Carolyn was nine months.”
The ages were close enough to the Fisher children. The twins, Dylan and Kevin, would have been three at the time of the fire. Maureen would have been eight months old.
“The woman’s age?”
“Eighteen. Claimed to be fleeing an abusive family situation. Said the children were hers and she needed protection.”
Smart cover story. Lizzy Pace would have been sixteen back then, but claiming she was eighteen gave her adult legal status. Which meant she had total legal authority over herself and her children.
Old enough to make decisions for all four of them without requiring permission and protection from child protective services.
“How did you track this down?” Flint asked.
“Started with the Department of Children and Family Services databases in states surrounding Kentucky. Cross-referenced emergency placements by date range and family composition. This case pinged in Ravenswood, Illinois, because the family had no prior records. No birth certificates. No medical histories. Nothing but the clothes on their backs, actually.”
Flint said, cocking his head as he poured a steaming cup of coffee. “Did they check DNA back then?”
The early morning light filtered through the kitchen window. Long shadows stretched across the hardwood floor. Traffic sounds from the street below grew more frequent as Houston came to life.
“No DNA. But the social worker noted several red flags. Lisa Peterson was evasive about her family background,” Gaspar’s keyboard clicked as he pulled up more files. “The children seemed frightened but not malnourished or abused. The biggest red flag was the medical examinations.”
“Why?”
“Recent smoke inhalation damage to their lungs. All four of them showed damage to both lungs.”
“Sounds like a promising lead, doesn’t it?”
“Possibly.” Gaspar sipped and swallowed before he continued, “The smoke inhalation was documented during the intake physicals. Consistent with exposure to house fire, according to the records.”
Flint nodded, clicking the pieces into place. Lizzy must have grabbed them from the nursery and hustled them out of the burning house.
She might have seen the arsonist. The boys might have seen him, too.
But then what?