“Yes. Her friend McKenna says someone gave Chloe a second phone, but she swears she doesn’t know who it is. Chloe wouldn’t tell her. The Lockharts had no idea Chloe even had a second phone, and neither did the nanny.”
“This could have been planned in advance, then.”
“That’s Conroy’s current thinking. Chloe’s gone off to meet whoever gave her that phone.”
Reed looked at the girl on the screen. She walked with purpose, her eyes forward. She definitely had a destination in mind. He set the video in motion again and watched her exit to the left side. Four seconds in total. Not much to go on. He watched it several times more. “Do you have any additional footage from this camera?”
“That’s all you see of her.”
“I know. I mean a longer clip—before and after Chloe shows up.”
Ellery swung the laptop around and called up a different video. “Here’s all we have. It’s a fifteen-minute chunk that chops off just after Chloe goes by.” She scraped most of her supper into the dog’s dish and cleared the counter while Reed studied the video. “I’m going to shower and change,” she said. “Are you taking Tula back to the hotel?”
The late hour and the vulnerable slump of her shoulders bade him to stay. Ellery did not like to admit she needed him, ever, so he tried to glean it from her body language. Only sometimes did he wonder if he was deluding himself. “If it’s okay with you, we’ll bunk here tonight. She’s out cold.”
Ellery played it off with a shrug. “Suit yourself.”
While she showered, he examined the video with repeating viewings, each time focusing on a different quadrant of the screen. Several vignettes caught his attention. He saw a toddler with a poof-ball ponytail on top of her head take a pratfall and skin her knees on the sidewalk before being scooped up into her mother’s arms. Elsewhere, a young couple lingered at the front of the jewelry store, perhaps discussing an engagement ring, since the woman’s left hand currently appeared to be empty. A freckled kid bouncing on and off the curb dropped an ice-cream cone; ten seconds later a passing German shepherd hoovered it up. Reed squinted and leaned in to study a shadowed figure in the upper right corner, just visible across the street. It appeared to be a man of indiscriminate age and race—not a kid, not a senior citizen, but he could be anywhere in between. His skin appeared gray due to the black-and-white video, and the camera was too far to make out any facial features. He wore a dark baseball cap and sunglasses. Reed noticed him because he was the only presence in the video not moving, which gave the impression that he waited for someone or something. Reed had difficulty discerning anything further because of the crowd that amassed in front of him every time the streetlight changed. Indeed, the man disappeared behind a mob as Chloe crossed in front of the camera. By the time she was gone again, so was he.
Ellery returned with her usual sleep attire, a T-shirt and soft cotton shorts, which showed off her bare arms and legs. Normally, he didn’t even notice the scars Coben had left on her body, but tonight they screamed his name. Reed averted his eyes. “Were you able to find out anything on the earlier incident Teresa mentioned?” she asked as she took a seat next to him. “The one involving the death of her son?”
Reed scrubbed his tired eyes with both hands. “I’ve contacted Philly for the details, but there is a lot of information available even via web searches if you know to look for it.” The local papers had carried 72-point headlines:
YOUNG BOY, HOUSEKEEPER SLAIN
NO SUSPECTS IN MURDER OF TREVOR STONE
CHILD KILLER STILL AT LARGE
“It’s late, so let me just tell you the one key fact Teresa didn’t mention,” he said. “The main suspect was Trevor Stone’s half brother, Justin. He’s Ethan Stone’s son from a previous marriage. He was seventeen at the time and apparently had a serious drug habit. The theory was that he wanted his little brother’s birthday money.”
Ellery gave a slow blink. “Then couldn’t he have just … taken it? Murdering your little brother for his birthday money seems like a seriously drastic step.”
“Rumor has it the grandparents forked over five hundred dollars for Trevor’s recent birthday. But yes, I agree, murdering your brother is a big leap from simple theft. I think the Philadelphia investigators were grasping for any kind of motive. In the end, though, no charges were ever filed.”
“Where is Justin Stone now?”
“That will be one of the questions I ask Philly when I talk to them tomorrow.” He shut his laptop and looked at his watch. “Which starts in about half an hour. Maybe we should get some rest, hmm?”
The dog was already snoring at her feet. “Sure. Okay.”
She took her time brushing her teeth, while he idled beneath the sheets. When at last she reappeared in the bedroom, she moved to lock the door as usual. “For Tula, can we leave it open tonight?” he said, rising up from the bed on one arm. “I don’t want her to wake up and not be able to find me.”
Ellery’s capitulation came slower this time. A short nod. Her shoulders tensed, but she slid beneath the sheets without argument. He took off his watch and set it on the nightstand, all the while trying not to notice the way her eyes kept finding the open door. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that he would keep her safe, but she believed in doors, not people. I love you, he’d said to her, after his family had exploded and it had been just the two of them standing in the smoking ruins. He’d spoken the words out loud only once. Now he waited for her to catch up.
When he shut off the bedside light, he expected her to turn away from him and lie rigid through the night, but she rolled to face him in the dark. “Tell me about the children who make it back,” she whispered. He took her in his arms, the way he’d longed to do since he’d stepped off the plane with Tula what felt like a million years ago. She had taught him how to hold her—full body, but not too tight. He smoothed his hand over the supple plane of her back and inhaled the fragrant scent of her hair.
“What do you want to know?” he murmured as she worried the hem of his T-shirt between her fingers.
“There are people who take kids because they want to love them, right? They’re just mixed up and they want a kid really bad.”
“It happens.” Mostly to babies, he did not say.
“You’ve seen it?” she asked, raising her head, trying to peer at him to see the truth.
He hedged some more. “Once.”
Ellery settled down uneasily, her cheek to his chest. He could feel the tickle of her eyelashes in her rapid blinking, and he fought the urge to pull her deeper into his arms. She did not cuddle under normal circumstances. He was lucky if she slept an entire night in the same bed with him, so he was not surprised when she shifted away after a few minutes and curled into her usual ball, facing the door. “Good night,” she murmured, signaling that she was done with him till morning.
He stared at the inky shadows on her ceiling and thought about the case he’d mentioned. His team had tracked a nine-year-old girl taken from her large, religious family by another woman who’d left the religion, claiming it was a cult. Both the family and the kidnapper lived off the grid, and the woman had moved around with the child multiple times over a period of several years. The girl was fourteen by the time they found her. Reed got to travel out to the family’s cabin in the woods to share the good news. Her stoic parents had been grateful at last for the law’s intrusion into their lives now that their girl was safe and sound. The trouble was, she no longer wanted to go home.