Finding Her Son(14)

After slowly passing the spot, she sped up and took a few more turns to her house. A picket fence surrounded her ranch-style home. As she pulled into the driveway, Mitch frowned at the Priced to Sell sign in the front yard. That was new since this morning. So, money was as tight as Tanner believed.

He grabbed the evidence box from the backseat and met her at the front door. “How long has it been on the market?”

“Not long.”

“You’re in a nice neighborhood. That should help it sell faster.”

“I hope so,” Emily said. “Let’s go into the dining room.”

They passed a kitchen, and Mitch noted a single cereal bowl and coffee cup on a drying towel. Nothing out of place. He glanced past a living room with a layer of dust on most of the wood surfaces. He hadn’t expected that. No magazines, no DVDs thrown about. The house didn’t really look lived in. He opened his mouth to pry as she slid open a walnut door. The words stuck in his throat when he entered the dining room.

“Whoa.” The walls had been converted to murder boards. Articles, photographs, dates had been attached, connected with arrows and lines, and adorned with notes.

Emily pointed to one side. “It’s a timeline of every event from the month before the hit-and-run until one month after. On the map, I’ve recorded every infant kidnapping in North America.”

Mitch rounded the dining room table and stepped up to the dozens of photographs tacked across the country. “You have found written on all of them. None of these kids are still missing.”

“Except Joshua.”

“And the small d in the corner of the photo?”

“Deceased,” she whispered.

Her words had gone so soft he could barely hear her. She probably hadn’t been able to write the word. Either way, the letter became a stark reminder of the worst that could happen.

He studied the third side of the room. Tips and newspaper clippings of missing children papered from ceiling to floor. On the final wall, a photo of Sister Kate’s refuge. She’d added two large questions. How many babies? Adoption?

No wonder what he’d seen of the rest of the house looked untouched. She spent all her time in this room, searching for clues to her son’s whereabouts. He couldn’t get over the detail. He disliked the tediousness of investigation, and this amazing woman had taught herself most of the techniques they’d covered in Mitch’s training at the police academy. She impressed him more and more with each passing moment.

“You’ve done a lot of work.”

“Not much else to do.” She sat in one of the hard cherry chairs, the only one that wasn’t perfectly aligned around the table.

“You have any help?”

“No one else seems inclined. Including your boss.”

Mitch didn’t blame her for the accusation in her tone. “What about your friends, family?”

“My brother’s stationed overseas. And friends… It’s been a while since I had any of those.”

Mitch let his surprise show. “You seem like a person people would latch onto—for movies, hiking, dinner.”

“I make most of my old friends…uncomfortable.”

She brought a self-conscious hand to her throat. Mitch had become accustomed to her husky voice, in fact he liked it, but it was another reminder. “Because of your son.”

“And this room. They said I was obsessed…the few who came over.” She clasped a locket resting on the outside of her turtleneck. “I remind them that nightmares can happen. Do happen.”

“You won’t give up until you find him.”

“Never. No matter what the Wentworths say or do.”

Mitch eyed a high chair pushed into the corner, a bib draped over the back. A small teddy bear with one blue eye and one brown eye sat in the seat right next to an empty wooden cradle. Unused for the past year. She faced the memory every day. This woman didn’t know where her child was. She didn’t know who took him. If she’d had anything to do with her husband’s death, she would know where to start.

If she were playing him, if this were an elaborate hoax, she deserved an Oscar. His job was to prove one theory or the other.

Placing the box with the few flimsy files on the floor, he sat beside her and stretched out his leg. “Let’s ignore the records for now and start from the beginning. What do you remember about that day?”

Emily’s expression fell, her vulnerability embedded in her eyes. Then she straightened her shoulders with an inner strength he recognized even after only a few conversations. While part of him wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her, he couldn’t. He’d already crossed a line. He liked her. He believed her. He had to keep his distance. No matter how tempting he found her.

“I try to remember the details of that night a dozen times a day,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what happened. Everything seemed fine. We’d barely left the house on the way to Eric’s parents’. The road was slick, but nothing out of the ordinary. I remember the lights coming at us, and flashes, the sound of Joshua’s cry—” her husky voice caught “—a hooded figure, but not much else.”

She rubbed her eyes with one hand and clutched at her throat with the other. “By the time I regained consciousness, a week had passed. Eric was dead. His family had held the funeral, and they blamed me for his death and Joshua’s disappearance. More than that, they thought I had something to do with the crash.” She reached out a hand to Mitch. “I know they believe I cut myself with the glass, but I would never… You have to believe me.”