Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Nash left church before the last verse finished.
The service had been nice. He was glad he’d gone.
But listening to the sermon had helped solidify something in his mind. The pastor had talked about being who God created you to be. And Nash knew his purpose was finding bad guys and putting them away.
For that reason, he had his phone out before he’d even reached the truck.
He scrolled to Deb’s contact information. The woman had a memory for cold cases that put most databases to shame. She’d been the one who sat with him in the hospital the week after the shooting, the only person from his old life who hadn’t tried to tell him everything happened for a reason.
She picked up on the third ring. “Well, two calls in one weekend. Who would’ve thunk?”
He skipped the small talk. “Deb, I need a favor.”
“That’s not a ‘how are you, Deb?’” Her voice softened anyway. “What’s going on, Nash?”
“Ten years ago there was a kidnapping in Fog Lake, Tennessee. A seven-year-old boy, taken off his family’s property and never found.
” He pulled out of the church lot, phone paired to the truck’s speakers and microphone.
“I need to know if there were ever any real suspects. I’ve already got one name—Everett Voss.
But if the department liked anyone else for it before the trail went cold, I need those too. ”
Another pause stretched, longer this time. “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t simply curiosity?”
“Because it isn’t.” Nash exhaled. He knew better than to keep the truth from her. “Between you and me, the boy showed up yesterday. Alive. Claims to be him.”
Deb didn’t say anything a moment.
When she finally spoke, all the teasing had gone out of her voice. “I’ll make some calls.”
Wren found her sisters already on the back porch, Marlowe wrapped in a blanket at the top step, Nora standing with a mug of coffee. Mason’s laugh carried from the yard as he chased Bo in a wide loop near the barn. He was close enough for Wren to keep an eye on him.
“You didn’t sleep either.” Wren dropped down beside Marlowe.
“Nobody slept,” Nora muttered. “I’ve been thinking about today. We need a plan. An actual one, not just a reaction.”
“What are you thinking?” Wren asked.
“We call Mom and Dad first. Before word gets out that Christian is here and they hear it from a stranger instead of us.” Nora wrapped both hands around her mug. “Then I think we should talk to Sheriff Wilder. After that, we talk about getting Christian seen by a doctor.”
“Today?” Marlowe sat up straighter. “He just got here, Nora. You want to hand him over to a hospital and a sheriff’s office?”
“I want to do this the right way.”
“It’s already something we can’t control.” Marlowe’s voice climbed with emotion. “That’s my point. We need to slow down and not rush this.”
“We’re not slowing down. We’re at a standstill right now,” Wren said. “We have to do something, but we don’t have to do all of it today either. Maybe we ease into it. Talk to Christian first. See where his head’s at. Find out if he remembered anything else.”
Nora looked at her as if she’d expected better. “That’s what we said yesterday.”
Nobody had an answer for that.
Nora let out a breath and stared out at the stretch of yard. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you both. Before he’s up.”
Wren’s stomach tightened at the ominous sound of her voice. “Okay.”
“I didn’t sleep last night,” Nora said. “I heard a noise around three, so I went to check on Christian. His door was cracked, but he wasn’t in bed.”
“Where was he?” Marlowe asked.
“He was standing on the desk chair. Barefoot. Facing the window.” Nora’s hands finally went still around the mug. “He wasn’t looking outside. Not really. He was just standing there as if he’d been called to attention and forgot to stand down.”
Wren’s blood chilled. “Did you wake him?”
“I said his name. Twice. He didn’t answer, didn’t blink, didn’t move at all—and that’s the part I can’t shake, how long it took before anything in his face changed.
” Nora set the mug down on the step beside her.
“Then all at once, he came back. He looked down at himself like he had no idea how he’d gotten up there. Then he asked me what happened.”
Wren’s chill grew even frostier. “He didn’t remember?”
Nora shook her head. “Not any of it.”
Wren wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to place the feeling crawling up the back of her neck.
It wasn’t exactly fear. It was something colder than that.