“Thanks, Dad.” He swiped his eyes. “How’s Megan? I thought maybe she’d come too.”
Jane inhaled and visibly pulled herself together. Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, so we’re chopped liver? You’d rather see her?”
Red flared in Will’s cheeks. “What? No, I didn’t mean that. I-I just thought . . .”
“Relax, she isn’t dumping you,” Reid said. “She wanted to come, but only parents are allowed. She and her mom have moved into our house though.”
Will smiled. “Wow, when did that happen?”
“Yesterday.”
Will’s grin went to nuclear wattage. “I’ll help out whenever I get out of here.”
The guard stepped to their room. “Time’s up, Chief. Sorry.”
Already? Reid wanted to protest, but he rose as Will got to his feet. He embraced their son, then Jane hugged him too, her nose red and her eyes moist.
“We’ll see you Wednesday, honey,” she said. “Love you.”
He clung to her, then turned to Reid again. “Love you guys. Can you leave me some money at the front? If we want any snacks and stuff like that, we have to have money in our account.”
“I’m on it.” Reid clapped Will on the shoulder and tried to keep a smile on his face, but his insides were shredded like shattered glass.
How could his boy be going through this? It wasn’t right.
His eyes burned as he and Jane made their way back to the front where Reid used his debit card to load Will’s account with as much money as was allowed.
Back out in the late-afternoon heat, he and Jane were silent as they went to her SUV. Nothing they could say would change what they’d just seen—their young son, scared and alone. Their helplessness to alter the situation right now was a hard pill to swallow.
Even Jane’s optimistic words from earlier seemed hollow, though he knew he’d cling to them when this shock had passed.
Jane flung herself under the steering wheel and leaned her head forward as she sobbed. “He’s counting on me, Reid. And I feel like I’m failing.”
From his seat on the passenger side, Reid leaned over and embraced her across the console. Though he wanted to weep himself, he had to be strong for her. “You’re not failing. It’s early days, Jane. We’re going to find the killer. I know we will.”
She lifted streaming eyes. “We’ve got to get him out, Reid. We just have to. I don’t care what it takes. I’ll break him out and flee to another country. I’m not letting him stay in there. How can the law perpetrate such a miscarriage of justice?”
“I know, honey. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“We keep saying that, but it’s not happening. There’s nothing I can produce in that courtroom in three days that will convince the judge to release him. I have to find it!” She banged her head on the steering wheel. “If I could only remember those three missing days.”
“Maybe it will come to you. Let’s get home and check on Olivia. The aide will be leaving in a while.”
As they pulled away, Reid stared back at the correctional facility. If only he could break in and rescue his boy. Instead, they had to drive off and accept this despair.
Thirty-Two
Odd. The back door of Reid’s house stood open.
He entered through the front door with Jane on his heels. “Hello?”
“Olivia?” Jane called.
They went through to the living room, and he stopped dead in his tracks. Cushions were scattered on the floor. Drawers from the end tables had been upended, their contents strewn on the floor.
Jane pulled out her gun. “Olivia! Rebecca!” She held out her arm for him to stay back. “Call 911 while I clear the house.”
Reid pulled out his phone and put in a call for help, then stayed on the line as he followed Jane down the hall to the master bedroom. His gaze took in the scene in an instant. The bed was empty, and the door to the closet hung open. Piles of clothing and boxes lay heaped on the floor.
He stepped to the bathroom and gasped at a figure lying on the tile floor.
“Rebecca!”
He knelt by the prone woman and touched her neck. A pulse beat steadily under his fingertips. “She’s alive.” A brass lamp was on the floor a few feet away.
“Don’t touch anything,” Jane warned. “Where’s Olivia?” Her voice was a thin strain, and her eyes were full of fear.
“I don’t see her wheelchair.”
“Let’s check the upstairs.”
He backed out of the bedroom and followed her upstairs to see if Olivia was there, though she couldn’t get up the steps unless someone carried her. The other three upstairs bedrooms seemed intact. No drawers dumped. The beds were still made, and the closet doors remained closed. They’d found whatever they were looking for downstairs or in the master bedroom.
The pictures?
He left Jane behind to dash down the steps to the living room. The pictures had been on the fireplace mantel this morning. He’d noticed them before he left and had meant to tuck them away somewhere. The space where they had been was bare.
At the sound of sirens Reid headed around the corner of the house and arrived at the front as Jane came rushing from the front door to meet up with Jackson and the paramedics.
“I’ll take you to Rebecca,” Jane said. “Any sign of Olivia?” she asked Reid.
“Not yet. I’m going to check out back.” He went through the house to the back deck. “Olivia!”
A sound barely registered off to his right behind the shed. Was that a cry or just a bird?
He jogged across the grass and rounded the corner of the shed where he spied movement over by the river. Olivia’s wheelchair had sunk into the mud, nearly in the water. The water lapped against her legs and into her lap.
He raced to grab the wheelchair handles, but he couldn’t budge it out of the muck with her in it. “I’ve got you.” He splashed into the water and reached one arm under her knees. “Grab hold of my neck.” He lifted her out of the chair and struggled up the muddy bank to practically collapse onto his knees on the grass. “You okay?”
“Yes. Those men. They wanted the pictures.”
“Did you recognize them?”
“They wore masks,” she said.
“How long ago did this happen?”
“A couple of hours. I tried to call Jane when I heard the noise at the door, but I didn’t get her.”
He remembered the call just before the tornado hit. “How’d you get out here?”
“One of the men brought me out.” Her lip trembled. “He was going to drown me if I didn’t tell him where to find the pictures. Is Rebecca all right?”
“She’s unconscious but alive.” He pulled out his phone and called Jane. “I’ve got Olivia. I think she’s okay, but you might have a paramedic check her out. We’re out back by the river.”
“Be right there.”
“Let me get your chair now.” Reid left Olivia on the grass and tugged her wheelchair out of the muddy river. It would need a bath.
Jane and a paramedic ran out the back door to join them. Jane hurried to Olivia’s side. “Olivia, what happened?” She moved out of the way as the paramedic knelt beside Olivia.