Sun recognized several of the officers on duty as they ducked under the tape and strode into the house, making sure not to disturb the area.
Ronald Aranda, a detective she’d worked with for years, sat on a wingback across from Mr. and Mrs. Kent in the living room.
“I put him to bed at nine,” Addison said, her voice breaking, “like I always do.” She sobbed into a tissue. Mr. Kent sat beside her, but they did not touch. There was no comforting in either direction
“Did you hear anything?” Ronald asked.
“No. I—I didn’t go to bed until late and went to check on him before I turned in. He was gone.” She broke down.
Addison was dressed in jeans and a white button-down, sneakers, and a light jacket, none of which looked hastily thrown on. Meaning she’d still been wearing them at three in the morning.
Sun couldn’t help but note that Mrs. Kent’s anguish was more … genuine this time around? She’d cried when Elliot went missing, but Sun had always felt that she and Matthew were holding something back. She’d been devastated, but in a different way. This was as real as it got.
“Detective,” she said to Ronald when she and Levi entered.
The detective stood and took her hand, genuinely pleased to see her. There was nobody better, in Sun’s opinion. The Kents were in good hands.
Addison jumped up. “Sunshine.” She rushed into Sunshine’s arms while her husband, Matthew, looked on, his posture guarded, his expression pensive.
“What happened?” Sun asked.
Levi stood back and did as she’d asked him to do in the cruiser. He observed. Maybe he would see something she didn’t.
“I went to check on him and he was gone,” she repeated, this time leading Sun to Adam’s bedroom.
Sun tossed Ronald an apologetic look over her shoulder; he shook his head and sat back down to talk to Matthew, basically giving Sun his okay. She was butting into his case, after all.
Levi followed them back. He tapped her shoulder and gestured toward the Kents’ bedroom. A suitcase sat open on the bed as though she was packing it. Or repacking it.
“He was right here,” Addison said, sweeping into Adam’s room and gesturing toward a bed in the shape of a race car. “I put him to bed, and then I stayed up to get some work done. When I came back, he was gone.”
The woman visibly shook, her pale face full of apprehension.
Sun took her hand to try to steady her. “I thought you guys were going to Albuquerque to stay with your mom?”
She tossed a furtive glance over her shoulder. “Matthew asked me to stay. Said we needed to work things out.” She stepped forward and pleaded with her. “You have to find him, Sunshine.”
Besides being utterly confused, considering her failed first attempt at finding a missing Kent child, Sun understood her grief, and her heart broke for the woman.
“Addison, Ronald Aranda is an excellent detective. Any interference from me would be frowned upon.”
“Do you think I care?” she asked, “He can frown all he wants. You know us. You know me. I want you on this case.”
“Okay, besides the fact that this is out of my jurisdiction, why would you want me, Addison? I never found Elliot. I never even got close.”
Addison sank onto the bed. “You’re wrong, Sunshine. You did find him. You almost ruined everything.”
19
If your housekeeping style is best described as
“There appears to have been a struggle?”
Let us help!
—SIGN AT DEL SOL CLEANING SERVICE
After a short period of recovery, Sun asked Addison to explain how she almost found Elliot when she’d always believed she’d never even come close.
“Somehow you connected the dots,” she said, shaking her head. “Dots we never expected anyone to connect. You tracked Elliot and his bodyguard to a house near Tesuque.”
Sun frowned. “No, I was wrong. There was no one there. That house had been vacant for weeks.” Then she remembered the cabin. She turned to Levi. “The pot of beans?”
He lifted a shoulder.
“The house had a loaf of bread on the counter that had about two weeks’ worth of mold on it. It was a setup?” When he shrugged again, she gaped at him, then turned back to Addison. “They had been there?”
“Not had. Were,” she said. “They were in a hideout under the floorboards. You stood right over them. You came within seconds of catching them red-handed, Sunshine. A minute earlier and you would have.”
Sun sat at a small desk chair, unable to believe it. While she was working to find the Kents’ son, they were working to keep him hidden.
“Why?” she asked, even though her research on Matthew Kent’s case told her pretty much everything she needed to know.
“We got a call,” Addison began. “We don’t know from who. A sympathetic party. She told us they were going to kidnap Elliot and hold him until Matthew turned over the money.”
“The fifty million.”
She nodded. “Or more. Who knows? But he swore he didn’t have it. If he did, Sun, I never saw it. Matthew is an asshole. Don’t get me wrong. And he deserved to go to prison for his part in what happened to all of those people, but he would never risk Elliot’s life. He would’ve turned over the money.”
“That’s when you had Elliot kidnapped. Before the real bad guys could do it.”
She nodded. “Matthew found a man willing to help us. I don’t know how or where or who paid him. All I know is that we met Keith Seabright in a dark alley, literally. He explained what we needed to do. Things like, be sure to break the window from the outside. Knock some toys onto the floor. Pull the sheets to one side like the kidnapper dragged him out of his bed.”
“He’s thorough.”
“And then …” A sob wrenched from her throat. “And then we just handed our baby over to him. A complete stranger.” She covered her mouth with a hand as another sob racked her fragile shoulders.
“Did it work?” Sun asked. “Was it the Delmar family? Did they leave you alone after that?”
“After Matthew pointed the finger at them, they backed off. They didn’t know who took him, either, and since they’d been planning to do it, I think the fact that Elliot was yanked out from under them made them take a step back.”
Sun was very aware that Matthew pointed the finger at Antony Delmar. She’d investigated the family for weeks.
“And then?”
Addison drew in a deep breath. “Seabright stayed in the area. For us. For me. After a few weeks, we started to meet up so I could see Elliot in secret. My baby boy. I took every opportunity and probably too many chances, but I saw him every moment I could. I got pregnant right before Matthew’s trial. I had Adam alone. After he got old enough to be curious about Elliot, old enough to ask questions, we told him the same thing Seabright told everyone else. That Elliot—Eli—was his sister’s son.”
Sun sat stunned. All those sleepless nights. All the anxiety and guilt and heartache. Their son’s life was being threatened. They had to make it look good. But damn.
“It was only supposed to be for a little while,” she continued. “He was supposed to miraculously be found. But Matthew swore the Delmars were waiting for him to slip up. That Elliot’s life was still in danger.”