Chapter 20
Twenty
No weenies allowed.
—Bumper sticker
Gentry
I watched her on the back porch steps, talking to Neo, her shoulders slumped.
I pulled open the sliding glass door and listened as she spoke.
“Come on, you know that you want to crawl into my lap,” Sage cooed at him.
Neo did look like he wanted to come closer.
Fear was forcing him to stay still, though.
“Please, big boy. I just want some kisses.”
Neo stayed where he was.
She sighed and got up, brushing the dirt off her bottom before she turned around and started to come inside.
She blinked and came to a stop when she saw me already standing there. “How much of that did you hear?”
“The begging?” I teased. “Just the last little bit.”
She looked over her shoulder at Neo. “He almost let me touch him today.”
“I saw,” I said. “Maybe if you bribed him like I told you, he’d have gotten closer by now.”
She held up the half-empty bag. “He’ll eat them all, as long as he doesn’t have to come closer than a foot and a half.”
“But it was three feet two days ago,” I pointed out. “You’re making progress, honey. He’ll get there.”
Just as I said that, my phone alerted.
I pulled it out of my pocket and frowned.
“What is it?”
“They think one of the missing toddlers was found on a popular hiking trail,” I said as I shoved my phone back into my pocket. “I gotta go.” I eyed her. “Are you going to be able to get to work?”
She sighed and eyed the snow on the ground. It wasn’t much. Just a light dusting. But it was enough to give you pause.
“I can ask Bernice for a ride,” she said.
“Come on,” I said. “I have to go to the station anyway. You can ride with me. From there, if I can’t get you, Bernice or Odin can give you a ride home.”
She nodded and hurried to her RV.
I watched her go, noticing that Neo didn’t flinch away from her as she hurried past him.
He watched her go the entire way. Even got up to head to her RV. Not going inside, but going close enough that he could if he wanted to.
When she came out, he followed at her side, about a foot away, until she got to me and said, “Ready.”
I opened the sliding door again and gestured her to go first.
She did, and I dropped down to my haunches to look at Neo eye level.
“You’re breaking her heart, big boy.”
He whined.
“She needs you,” I said.
He dropped down to his belly and looked at me warily.
I stood up, closed the door, and followed Sage out of the house.
Three days had passed since we’d slept together.
She hadn’t exactly moved into my place, per se, but she’d been there almost every waking moment until it was time for bed.
She’d also finished up her job at the hospital and was starting her first official day at the doctor’s office in town. Along with Bernice as well as Odin.
From my understanding, they would all be learning together.
It would prove to be a bit of a chaotic day, but I believed in my girl.
She would kill it.
When I got outside, she was standing patiently next to my cruiser.
I opened her door and helped her inside, then slammed the door closed before getting to my side and climbing in.
We were halfway down the road when she said, “It’s awfully cold today. Why on earth would a child be at a hiking trail? And if he wasn’t brought out there today and left, he has to be somewhere close by.”
“Agreed,” I said as I drove slowly into town.
Everyone and their brother seemed to be out already, despite it barely hitting eight in the morning, so the ride to town was slow.
By the time that I pulled up into the spot at Odin’s new practice, it was ten minutes past when she’d said she was originally going to be there.
“At least my boss is your friend,” she murmured as she climbed out of the cruiser. “Hope your day goes well.”
She blew me a kiss and was out of the truck before I could say or do anything, slamming the door behind her and hurrying inside.
I watched her until she was inside before pulling away from the curb and thinking that my day would suck now because she hadn’t given me a kiss before she’d bailed.
I was grumpier than I probably should be as I headed inside, which was of course when I saw Kelly standing there, blocking my way.
“Excuse me,” I grumbled as she smiled and waved.
“Oh, sorry.” She blushed as she fell into step next to me. “What’s going on here?”
I ignored her and kept walking, heading for the main room where I could hear Black talking.
I found him in the middle of the bullpen holding a toddler on his hip, looking worried.
He had several FBI agents surrounding him, and all of them seemed to be talking at once.
“…on their way from Wyoming right now.”
“What are they doing that far away?” Agent Dempsey asked.
Black shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”
Dempsey hummed. “Interesting.”
Dempsey’s partner, Dunn, looked even more suspicious.
“What are we thinking?” I asked. “How’d he get there?”
“Cameras prove that he walked up off a side trail,” Black answered, not surprised to find me there. “Sadly, that trail leads to a ski-in ski-out area, and there are several neighborhoods where he could’ve come from.”
“As well as several hunting lodges,” Deputy Faith added. “My pop has a hunting lodge that he takes that same trail to get to the public land off the trailhead.”
“Can we get a dog out there to find a scent trail?”
“Maybe could have had it not snowed last night,” Black grumbled. “I have Mance out there knocking door to door, asking for access to their cameras. Maybe if we can find a direction he came from, we’d have a place to start.”
The kid didn’t look any worse for wear, which meant that someone was taking really good care of him.
“What’s with that look on his face?” I asked.
“He’s suspicious of women,” he said. “Dempsey’s too close.”
Dempsey took a huge step back.
“We thinking a woman abused him?” I asked.
Just as I asked that, the doors burst open and two terrified parents came rushing in the door.
The woman made a beeline for the kid, but I caught her before she could throw herself at Black.
“Wait,” I cautioned her. “Listen to me.”
Her face went murderous, seconds away from lashing out.
The husband opened his mouth to launch into me, but I held my hand up. “Just wait. Calm down. He’s scared.”
The two parents stilled.
“He’s terrified of women,” Black explained gently. “Cautious. I don’t know if you will scare him.”
The mom moved slowly toward her son as if she were approaching a wild animal and the boy turned away, screaming and burying his face into Black’s chest, body tight as a bowstring.
A devastated look crossed over the mother’s face. “Go to him, James.”
James did, slowly and cautiously, and the boy launched himself at his dad before saying, “Daddy!”
The dad looked horrified and relieved all at the same time.
The mom looked like she’d been punched in the gut.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “He’s scared.”
She nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.
I pulled her into my arms, hugging her tight.
I wasn’t the best man in the world.
Hell, I wasn’t even close.
But I knew when a woman could use a hug, and this mom looked like she could desperately use one. The mom caught onto my Kevlar vest straps and buried herself into my throat, sobs racking her small frame.
I patted her back as the dad’s eyes met mine, pure relief and thanks in his.
I nodded once in understanding.
“A woman was the one to find him,” Dempsey said softly to the couple, though I wasn’t sure the mom was hearing much of anything.
“She tried to help him, but any time she got close, he ran and screamed bloody murder. The woman’s husband tried, and he was perfectly okay.
He was checked over at the hospital already, but the same thing happened with the female nurses.
Only male doctors and nurses were able to approach him. ”
“Son of a bitch,” James, the dad, said shakily. “What happened to my boy?”
I wished I had the fucking answers, because there were six more boys just like him missing, too.
If one was able to get free, and was okay, there had to be more out there waiting to be saved.