Chapter 9 #3
“But how?” Theo demanded. “I control Allie’s bank card and her credit card, and she hasn’t used them! That boy, he doesn’t have … well, a pot to piss in, as they say. Right now, we just want to know that our daughter is alive!”
“Sir, we will do everything in our power. And we have teams of people across the state and beyond now. We promise to let you know as soon as we discover anything, anything at all. But again, if you think of anything, anyone who might have been hanging around them, persuading them that they should disappear, please let us know!” Gavin told the pair.
“Of course!” Theo vowed.
Five minutes later, they were in the car again.
Skye turned and gave the brush to Zach.
Zach held it and closed his eyes.
It wasn’t dark, but neither was it light, because Allie was surrounded by trees. He could see the world that Allie Mason was seeing.
Beau wasn’t at her side and that made her nervous. In fact …
She was worried. Trepidatious. Something had gone wrong; something wasn’t as she expected it to be.
Someone was crying near her. He heard the words of a child.
“I want my mommy!”
“Shush, darling, it’s all right!”
Allie couldn’t see the speakers; she could just hear them. And she couldn’t move because her hands were behind her back. She was tied to the trunk of a large tree. The oak was so large that the branches were weighing down all around her, obscuring the world with the richness of their leaves.
The vision faded.
“What is it?” Skye asked him anxiously.
He shook his head. “Allie is tied to a tree somewhere. One of the kids is crying—Jeremy, I think. Patricia is trying to assure him, to keep him behaving so that he’ll remain safe.”
“So, what the hell is going on?” Gavin muttered angrily.
“What did you get from the parents?” Zach asked him.
“Honesty, I’m afraid. They were both telling the truth—as they know it,” Gavin said. “Trees and woods. We could search the rest of our days.”
“We believe, from what we and others searching in the field discovered, that the kidnappers took Jeremy and Patricia from the Bolton house through the woods to another road—but they’re heading to another forest somewhere.
That seems to be what Zach and I are both seeing.
We must figure out where; something, somewhere, must give us a clue as to what forest and where! ”
“All right, well, we’re heading back toward Salem, with a stop by Beau’s parents’ house. Maybe they can give us something!” Gavin mused.
“Or someone. We need a someone,” Zach said. “Any idea how we can find out who this person watching Beau while he was playing football might be?”
“Maybe Beau’s parents can give us an idea,” Gavin suggested.
Skye sighed softly. “And maybe it was a college scout or just a friend of the family. We need to find a way to really get a handle on this.”
“Beau’s parents, next stop,” Gavin told them.
* * *
The house was far different from the elegant old Victorian they had just left.
It was a two-story home, but the paint was faded and peeling. Tile steps that led to a small porch appeared chipped in some areas and broken in others.
The car that sat in front of the house was a minivan that had to be at least fifteen years old.
“I can see where Allie’s folks might believe that Beau isn’t up to their standards,” Gavin observed.
“As if money or someone’s background would automatically make the boy a bad influence. I’m assuming he’s keeping his grades up if he’s on the football team, and it sounds as if he was an important player,” Skye said. She sounded angry.
Zach smiled inwardly. Of course, Skye would hate that the amount of money someone possessed would create a judgment regarding a human soul.
“‘Never judge a book by its cover,’ and all that,” Zach murmured. “They know we’re coming—”
“Yep!” Gavin assured him. He exited the car, and they joined him walking to the front door and knocking upon it.
This time, no one showed up right away.
“Think they hightailed it out of town?” Gavin theorized.
Zach pounded on the door. “Federal agents!” he called out.
They heard footsteps; someone was coming at last.
The door was opened by a tall, broad-shouldered man, one who was probably in excellent shape at one time, but was just now developing a little bit of middle-age spread. He had a full head of graying-brown hair and a face that appeared haggard and worried.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just out of the shower,” he told them. “I’m Artie, Artie Carter. My wife is in the kitchen; we’ve got some coffee on. Would you like some?”
Skye glanced briefly at Zach before uttering a friendly “Sure!”
As they walked in, Skye was the one to do the introductions, repeated when they reached the kitchen and met Mrs. Sybil Carter.
She poured cups of coffee, and Zach glanced at Gavin then—who gave him a nod as Skye had become prone to do when they were asking themselves if they were making a good read.
The Carters were nervous and miserable, truly anxious to be as helpful as they could be. Sybil Carter had been brewing the coffee—which she set out with a plate of homemade muffins—because she was worried, anxious, and needed something to do.
“I wish, I wish, I wish, that we could help you! Please,” Artie said, “ask us anything; we are so worried about our boy!”
“I keep telling him it’s that awful girl!” Sybil moaned. She was a tiny, slim woman, maybe five-four at a stretch. Like her husband, she appeared weary and haggard, but once, she had been an attractive woman.
“And they try to blame things on our boy!” Artie told them, shaking his head. “Beau is eighteen. He’s a good kid, I swear. Excellent grades, works so hard. While that girl …”
He shook his head again, his voice trailing.
“Artie,” Sybil said softly, “I don’t think Allie is that terrible.
It’s just that she was raised to think everything in life would be handed to her.
And her parents! They think money makes the world; and since we don’t have any, they think Beau must be a horrible creature.
He’s anything but! I know we’re his parents, and we’re prejudiced, but you ask his friends, his teachers … ”
“And those idiots are so full of it!” Artie told them. “Beau is the one who is going to suffer for this. He was in the offing for a full scholarship to college!”
“Several offers,” Sybil corrected.
“He’s had several scouts after him from several colleges!” Artie said.
“Scouts, of course. We’ve heard he’s an amazing athlete,” Skye said. “We understand that at the last game he played, someone was watching him. Was that a scout?”
“The last game …” Sybil mused.
“Yes, yes, of course!” Artie said, enthused. “I only met him briefly. He was going to speak with Beau after the game, and I guess that he did. Beau was getting a ride home with a friend, and Sybil and I took off after the game.”
“I’m a housekeeper,” Sybil explained. “And I start early.”
“As do I. Construction,” Artie said. “But that’s just it. Our boy has been scouted by big places—Tennessee, Miami, Pennsylvania. He has everything in front of him!”
“If his infatuation for that girl doesn’t ruin his life!” Sybil said passionately.
“Unless it wasn’t the girl at all,” Artie told them. “I mean, we heard about the kids who were taken by a witch in Salem! Go figure. Do you think … Oh, my God, is our boy even alive?”
His wife let out a sob.
“We have good reason to believe that those kidnapped are alive—” Skye began.
“But someone murdered that man! That man—” Sybil began.
“Mike Bolton. Old fellow, killed in his bed, from what we saw on the news,” Artie said.
“But we have found clues in the woods that suggest the children are all still alive. Sir, with your permission, of course, we’ll check with the schools.
Witnesses saw Beau and Allie leave with someone in a dark sedan after the dance,” Zach explained.
“We think they were lured away with a promise of something. Did you try to forbid Beau from seeing Allie?”
Sybil and Artie looked at each other, both shaking their heads.
“We didn’t; Allie’s parents did,” Artie told them. “Except they didn’t try to forbid Allie from going to school events. So, yes, she saw Beau at games; and they both went to that dance. Do you think—”
“We seriously think they’re fine, and we’re going to find them,” Skye said, her voice gentle and assuring.
“But here’s the thing—we believe someone did get to them.
Maybe this person promised they would just spirit them away to be alone for a bit, or gave them some other reason to go and get into that car. ”
She stopped speaking, looking from Gavin to Zach.
“We’ll think. I promise, we’ll think and think!” Sybil told them. “Beau has spoken with scouts at school, but why would a scout try to spirit him and Allie away?”
A scout wouldn’t, Zach knew.
But someone pretending to be a scout might.
“We’ll check into it with the school,” Zach promised. “And anything—”
“We’ll call you. We’ll talk. We’ll think of anything and everything!” Sybil promised.
Her husband set an arm around her shoulders. “We need our boy back. Please, we’re begging you.”
“And we won’t stop,” Skye promised. “Question, though. Did Beau really climb through a window at the Mason house—”
“Yes, and he was duly reprimanded,” Artie said. “The kid is a teen in love! And her parents were so horrible to him! It was a chance to see her—and, not to mention, she told him to come over and climb through the window.”
Teens in love. None of that part of the story seemed faulty.
In fact …
Zach looked at Gavin.
The Carters were telling the truth. The truth, as they knew it.
“All right. We’ll be in constant touch,” Zach promised. “By the way, though, do you have something of Zach’s that we can take?”
He knew the look. The look of horror. Everyone assumed that they were looking for DNA—to compare with that on a burned or decomposed corpse.
“Helps us when we find little clues—we can follow people that way!” Skye assured him quickly.
This time, when Sybil disappeared and reappeared, she was carrying a T-shirt.
“I haven’t washed it yet; he was wearing it right before he disappeared,” Sybil told him. “Bits of DNA possible, maybe?”
“It’s perfect, thank you,” Zach said.
“We’ll get on everything that we can,” Gavin said. “And thank you so much for the coffee and muffins. They were delicious.”
Zach and Skye echoed his thanks, and they managed to get out the door and headed back to the car.
“I’ll get on retrieving information from whatever cameras there might have been at that game,” Gavin said.
“See if that was a scout or not—or if one of the scouts he saw previously isn’t on record with the school.
There will be security footage from the school.
But techs will get on that, once I make the call. So, where do we go now?”
Zach was holding the shirt.
He closed his eyes. And he saw what Beau Carter saw.
He opened his eyes and spoke to Skye and Gavin.
“Into the woods,” he told them.