Chapter 19 #2
Greta was hysterical. “God wouldn’t do this to us twice. We already lost our son! Why would he take Mandy too?”
David was as desperate as she was but was trying to hold it together as he called the police.
They arrived on the scene and searched the premises on their own, including the basement.
They asked for a picture of Mandy, then began questioning David and Greta.
The moment they began keying in on them instead of sending out an alert to be on the lookout for a missing child, David knew this was going to get worse.
They were wasting time his daughter might not have.
“I need to call the office and let them know I won’t be in today,” he said, and when they gave him a suspicious look, his gut knotted.
They were already looking for someone to blame, and a parent was the first place they looked when a child went missing.
His hands were shaking as he made the call, and when he heard Briar’s voice, it was all he could do not to cry.
“Briar, it’s me, David. We just woke up here to hell. Mandy is missing. Greta and I have scoured the house from top to bottom, and now the police are here, standing around watching me make this call.”
Briar gasped. She’d met Greta and Mandy, and could only imagine how scared they were.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. Don’t worry about the office. I’ve got this. Nothing is pressing here, and whatever comes in that is out of my league, I will reschedule. I know this may sound weird to you, but have you heard of Tate Bandy?”
“You mean the psychic who just solved a cold case for the PD?”
“Yes, that one. I know him, and if I ask him, he will come to you for free. He’ll know where she’s gone and who has her. If you want him at your house, just say yes. I’ll give him your address.”
“This bunch already wants to pin it on me. Yes. Send him.”
“On it,” Briar said, and disconnected.
“Who were you talking to?” the detective asked.
“My assistant, Briar Lowe. Someone has to cover the shipping office today.”
“So, what’s with the ‘send him’ comment?” he asked.
“She’s contacting someone for me. That’s what it’s about.” Then David sat down on the sofa beside Greta, took her in his arms, and cried with her.
* * *
Tate was dawdling this morning, reticent to start work. Something was happening, and somehow Briar was connected. He had the sensation of everything moving in slow motion, and a ringing in his ears. And then his cell phone began to ring. He knew before he looked that it was her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“My boss’s ten-year-old daughter was missing from her bed this morning. They’re hysterical. The police are there questioning the parents and have yet to even post an alert to be on the lookout for her. Don’t be mad, but I told him you would help him for free, if he wanted it. He said yes.”
“I’m never going to be mad at you,” Tate said. “I suppose there are cops everywhere, but I know how to wade through them.”
“Thank you, darling, thank you. Mandy is such a little sweetheart. I cannot bear to think of what might be happening.”
Tate flashed on Trevor Bennett and never hesitated. “Send me the address. I’ll be there within the hour.”
She texted him the address, then buckled down to work, knowing today was going to be chaos without David here.
* * *
The house at the address turned out to be a mansion.
The gates on the property were wide open, and a police car was still parked at the house, although it appeared the others were gone when Tate drove up.
He parked beside the squad car and was walking up the steps when a uniformed officer stopped him at the entrance.
“The family isn’t taking visitors,” he said.
“I’m not a visitor. I was asked to come. Tell David Gregory that Tate Bandy is here.”
Within seconds, David pushed past the cop and held out his hand. “Thank you for coming. I’m David Gregory. Please come in.”
Tate followed him inside, met Greta, then sat down with them and let them talk, because the first thing he kept seeing were stairsteps. Going up and down. Up and down, and that didn’t make sense.
“Your daughter is ten?” Tate asked.
“Yes. She’s what makes our world turn, and I’m scared shitless by what could be happening to her,” David said.
Tate nodded. “I need to see her bedroom,” he said, as David’s phone rang.
“Greta, will you please show Tate to her room?”
Greta was small and slender, with almost as much gray hair as David. She was shattered by what was happening but readily agreed.
“Yes, of course,” she said, and led the way.
The first image in Tate’s mind when he entered the room was seeing a man picking up a little girl and carrying her out into the hall. “Do you have staff on the premises?” Tate asked.
“No. I have a weekly cleaning service. There’s a gardener who comes weekly to mow, and that’s it,” she said.
The image of the child in the man’s arms was gone now, but he kept seeing the same stairs. Up and down. Up and down. A few moments later, he went back downstairs. He was about to start searching the house when he saw the photos lining the mantel above the fireplace and walked over.
“This is Mandy and you and David. Who’s this boy?”
Greta’s eyes welled. “Our son, Scott. We gave him a cruise as a gift after he graduated college, and during the cruise he fell overboard. His body was never recovered. I wanted to die too. Nine months later, a young girl who we knew as one of Scott’s friends showed up at our door.
She was one of five other graduates who’d gone on the cruise with Scott, and she tells us she’s nine months pregnant with Scott’s child.
She wasn’t going to keep the baby, but wanted us to know.
David told her when she had it, we wanted a DNA test to prove it was Scott’s, and that if it was, we would pay her medical bills and keep the baby.
Long story short, Mandy is technically our granddaughter, and she knows her birth daddy is dead and we’re grandparents, but she calls us Mommy and Daddy, because that’s how she needs her world to be. ”
Tate’s heart was pounding. The man he’d seen picking Mandy up was the same man from the picture. Scott Gregory wasn’t dead, but he didn’t understand why he would steal his own daughter, or not let his parents know he was alive.
When David came back into the room, Tate asked if he could search the exterior of the property.
“Absolutely,” David said. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“You can if you want,” he said. They were halfway out the door when Tate stopped and turned around. “Do you have a basement to this house?”
“Yes, but the police have already searched there.”
“I need to see it,” Tate said.
“Then follow me,” David said, and led the way through the house, then through the kitchen and down a hall to a door leading to the basement below, talking as they went.
“There’s a really funky feature about his house,” David said.
“It has a tunnel that leads to another house down the block. It used to be a house of ill repute, as they called it back then. It was during prohibition days, I think. I was told there are tunnels in other houses leading to the same house.”
Even as they were going down, Tate was seeing the steps again. Up and down. Up and down.
David switched on the lights and then stood aside. When Tate headed straight for the dust-covered door near a wall of shelves, David called out. “That’s the door I was talking about. We’ve lived here closed to twenty years and it’s never been opened.”
Tate put his hand on the latch. It should have been stiff or hard to open, and the handle should have been as dusty as the door, but when he touched the handle, he saw Scott Gregory’s hand on it too.
“That house of ill repute. Does somebody live there now?” Tate asked.
“No. It’s been vacant for years.”
Tate opened the door, and when he did, light bulbs in the ceiling of the tunnel flickered on. In his mind, he was seeing Scott walking away with Mandy hanging limply over his shoulder.
He turned abruptly. “David. Go outside and tell that police officer to send squad cars to the house at the end of this tunnel. Not your house. That house. Tell them the person who took your daughter has her in that house on the upper floor. Tell them I’m going in from the tunnel and not to shoot at me.
The man they’re looking for has white-blond hair. ”
David jerked like he’d been shot, then turned and ran as Tate started into the tunnel.
The urgency to run was strong for Tate, but he couldn’t take a chance on alerting accomplices, or Scott Gregory himself, and lengthened his stride instead.
At the end of the tunnel was another unlocked door. Tate pushed. It swung outward into another smaller basement. He went up those steps into the old kitchen in haste. Pausing to listen, he heard nothing and moved farther into the house.
He knew Mandy wasn’t on the ground floor, but he didn’t know if someone else was, and moved cautiously toward a grand staircase.
Up and down. Up and down. This house was where his consciousness was telling him to go, and up he went, pausing again on the second landing.
As he did, he heard what sounded like a child crying from somewhere down the hall.
He moved toward the sounds, and as he did, he began hearing Scott Gregory too.
“Don’t cry, Mandy. I’m your daddy, and you’re going to live with me now.”
Mandy wailed. “My first daddy’s dead. I live with his mommy and daddy now.”
“No! I’m not dead. They stole you. You’re my daughter. You belong to me!”
Mandy screamed. “Don’t touch me! I want my mommy!”
Scott was pissed and frustrated and about to dig a bottle of sleeping pills from his pocket to shut her up, when the bedroom door flew open, hitting the wall with a bang.
He saw a giant of a man come flying into the room, and had a horrifying feeling he’d just been made, then reacted—a little too late.
He was reaching for the baseball bat lying on the floor by his feet when the giant grabbed him by the shirt and punched him square in the face.